One scenario where 49ers start Trey Lance in Week 1

The initial plan for the 49ers is to start Jimmy Garoppolo over their high-profile rookie in 2021, but there’s one way Lance gets the start in Week 1.

If everything goes according to plan, the San Francisco 49ers will wait to start their rookie quarterback, Trey Lance, until 2022 at the earliest. In the meantime, head coach Kyle Shanahan and Co. will go with their veteran, Jimmy Garoppolo, hoping he can recapture some of the success he had back in 2019 when he was a big part of the Niners’ Super Bowl run that season.

Shanahan has already told reporters Lance isn’t ready to start anytime soon, particularly after missing all but one game with North Dakota State last year because of the pandemic and only getting a full year under center in 2019.

“Jimmy is our quarterback right now, and Trey is going to come in here and try and compete,” Shanahan told reporters via NBC Bay Area’s Taylor Wirth. “He’s going to do everything, and the day that it looks like Trey can compete with him, and he’s ready to go, we’ll know that and our players will see that and we won’t hesitate on that.”

Indeed, San Francisco has reasons to maximize Garoppolo’s value on the open market, particularly via a would-be trade to a quarterback-needy team. If Garoppolo plays well in 2021, that value would increase for a trade next offseason.

Yet if Jimmy G had any trade value before the NFL Draft, it’s all but gone now. Teams that could have been interested all made quarterback pickups. The Denver Broncos traded for Teddy Bridgewater, while the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots drafted Justin Fields and Mac Jones, respectively.

That pushes the idea Lance will start at any point this season out the door, right?

Well, not exactly.

49ers could still prepare Trey Lance to start in Week 1

Lance is raw, yes. But it isn’t as if he’s totally foreign to Shanahan’s offense. North Dakota state ran a similar outside-zone, play-action style, albeit much less complex. And it was from those games, as well as 49ers-like drills during Lance’s second pro day, that ultimately convinced Shanahan and general manager John Lynch the former Bison signal-caller was their guy.

Getting Lance up to speed as quickly as possible surely is on the Niners’ collective mind. And not just to guard against an injury to Garoppolo.

Should Jimmy G suffer an offseason injury, yes, that would open up a scenario where Lance could start right away. But that’s not what we’re getting at here.

Instead, it’d have to do with a potential pre-Week 1 trade of Garoppolo.

It’s still unclear how the NFL will handle training camps, particularly with the bulk of OTAs and offseason workouts still coming back in one way or another after being entirely absent because of the pandemic last year. Following the altered offseason, training camps were modified and the preseason was eliminated, leading to a swarm of injuries around the league, and San Francisco felt it harder than any other team.

While one should never hope for it, there’s always the real chance another team’s starting quarterback goes down with some serious injury before the regular season kicks off. That could prompt a more desperate trade, one which the 49ers might not be willing to turn down.

It’s not without precedent.

In 2016 before Week 1, Bridgewater suffered a devastating knee injury when he was with the Minnesota Vikings, who were on the cusp of being a regular playoff team. That prompted the Vikings to send off a first- and fourth-round pick to the Philadelphia Eagles for quarterback Sam Bradford.

Bradford wasn’t worth a Round 1 pick on even a lukewarm market. Yet Minnesota’s desperation forced the trade anyway, ultimately sending Bradford to the Vikings and a 3,877-yard, 20-touchdown campaign.

The Niners, without first-round picks in 2022 and 2023, would certainly entertain a team’s offer of that caliber for Garoppolo should that kind of desperation arise. It would move Jimmy G’s contract, too, thereby freeing up much-needed money San Francisco could then use to extend players like All-Pro linebacker Fred Warner sooner than later.

All the while opening up the door for Lance to become the 49ers’ starter sooner than anticipated.

Even though it might not be the plan, the Niners have to prepare for that possibility.