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

A fair prediction of Trey Lance’s impact in 2022

Maybe the Niners attempted to copy a lot of what the Chiefs did in 2017 for Patrick Mahomes: a lofty trade-up followed by letting the rookie sit behind an established veteran for a full year.

Any further parallels between the two would be great, as Mahomes has emerged as a generational talent, while Trey Lance could be trending in that direction, too.

However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

A closer comparison might be to that of Josh Allen, whose 2019 sophomore campaign in the NFL produced a 58.8 completion percentage with a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 20-to-9.

Granted, Lance is entering year one of being a full-time starter, whereas Allen already had a year of starting under his belt. Yet Allen certainly didn’t have the luxury of a loaded Bills offense at that particular point, as Buffalo was in year two of its rebuild under head coach Sean McDermott.

No rebuild to see in San Francisco. And this leads to some words defensive tackle Arik Armstead recently had to say about Lance:

"I’m expecting great things from him. I’m excited to see what he’s going to do, but he’s not alone when he takes the field. Our team is very talented, and it’s not just “The Trey Lance Show.” He’s surrounded by a lot of talented, great players, and we’re all going to go out there and do what we can to help us win games. It’s not just going to be on his shoulders."

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From that, perhaps we can deduce Lance’s 2022 campaign will fall somewhere above Allen but perhaps not by a ton.

Anything better than a 60-percent completion rate would be solid for Lance, and if he’s able to pass for more than 3,000 yards amid a 17-game season, that’d be a good base, too. Especially if he has a better-than 2-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio, which will also be the mark of trending in the right direction.

OK, you want stat lines. Here you go: 62-percent completions; 3,400 yards; 22 passing touchdowns vs. 10 interceptions for a 91.0 passer rating.

Maybe it’s even better.