49ers roster: Why Trey Lance silences his critics as a first-year starter

Why Trey Lance surpasses expectations with 49ers in 2022

It’d be extremely too optimistic to suggest Trey Lance replicates Patrick Mahomes’ 2018 MVP campaign in the latter’s first full year of a starter.

However, we can prompt the idea of Lance having a good-quality campaign in which he shows signs of being a perennial Pro Bowler to a large degree.

The benchmark is likely an OK 2022 campaign, perhaps slightly improving upon his limited sample size from a year ago, at least in terms of completion percentage and touchdown-to-interception ratio.

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Generated 6/28/2022.

Lance will be compared to other Round 1 quarterbacks from 2021, namely the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence, the New York Jets’ Zach Wilson, the Chicago Bears’ Justin Fields and the New England Patriots’ Mac Jones.

Certainly, in contrast to the first three, Lance’s complement of receiving weapons is vastly superior to those of his counterparts, signaling just how the 49ers did their best to set their quarterback up for as much future success as possible.

We can look at the context, of course, but there’s a key area where Lance can outpace Jimmy Garoppolo’s own expectations: the ability to hit all areas of the field.

Trey Lance vs. Jimmy Garoppolo: Using the whole field

Garoppolo’s 68.3 completion percentage from last year is in line with his career average of 67.7.

Yet anyone who’s watched Niners games over the last few years can attest to where Garoppolo is attempting to go with the ball, and it’s typically no further than 10 yards out from the line of scrimmage and in between the numbers, as this Week 16 Next Gen Stats passing chart from a year ago shows:

A week later, during Lance’s second-ever NFL start, it’s not hard to see how the dispersion of pass attempts is much greater in comparison:

Now, let’s take what NBC Sports’ Chris Simms said when comparing the two and their respective tendencies:

That’s where exceeding expectations can come into play for Lance here.

Trey Lance extending plays for 49ers

One of the advantages Garoppolo has over Lance is the ability to get rid of the ball quickly. Lance will need to work on that.

Yet Garoppolo isn’t a playmaker. Let’s establish that right away, and head coach Kyle Shanahan has already found his team beaten by playmaking quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes, the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen and the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, previously.

There are a number of analytics-based arguments on how playmaking quarterbacks positively impact their teams’ offenses, although this Football Outsiders’ breakdown from Derrik Klassen on Lance from Week 17 last year might be the most useful, specifically contrasting Garoppolo to Lance:

"… It’s good to see [Lance] act with a plan when he gets outside the pocket. Garoppolo simply does not offer this kind of play outside the pocket. He does not want to do it and he is largely incapable of doing it. Garoppolo is a fine athlete for the position, truthfully, but he does not have the same level of comfort operating while on the fly the way Lance does."

In both cases, especially if one wants to cast an expectation for Lance just below Garoppolo’s level last year, it shouldn’t be too difficult for the young quarterback to exceed these measures.

There are, however, going to be some notable challenges. Let’s look at those.