No. 1 thing Trey Lance needs to show: Mitigating the pass rush
“Fake” sacks are a thing during OTAs and minicamp. They’ll effectively be real during training camp when the pads come on.
San Francisco’s defensive line, once again, emerges as the team’s strongest unit, and pass-rushers like Nick Bosa, Samson Ebukam and newly acquired rookie Drake Jackson will also be looking to prove their value in camp against Trey Lance and the offensive line.
If there was one visible knock against Lance in the limited action he had last season, it was how he handled himself against pressure.
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Granted, there was plenty of improvement between his two starts, Week 5 compared to Week 17, but it’s still an area of concern. Case in point, Pro Football Focus gave the quarterback a 110.2 passer rating when he was kept clean, yet that stands in glaring contrast to the 56.5 rating he had when facing pressure.
This isn’t uncommon for young quarterbacks, so it’s no case of panicking outright.
That said, Lance will be lining up opposite the 49ers’ best pass-rushers in training camp, which wasn’t the case in any of the offseason practices he’s had thus far.
How the signal-caller responds, especially behind a questionable O-line, might be a good indicator of how he fares once the regular season rolls around.