Trey Lance turns the page on ugly Week 1 of 49ers training camp

While there were some positives, Trey Lance didn’t have the easiest time over the first week of 49ers training camp, but Week 2 has already looked different.

What a difference a week can make.

Aside from a solid debut on the first day of practices during San Francisco 49ers training camp, quarterback Trey Lance largely spent the first week of sessions realizing just how talented the Niners defense might be in 2022.

Lance, who is getting his first unquestioned crack at working with the first-team unit this year after spending his rookie season as QB2 behind Jimmy Garoppolo, saw plenty of struggles over that first week, including tossing at least one interception per day aside from his first practice and only completing approximately 50 percent of his passes.

Granted, many of his incompletions were dropped by receiving targets, and the second-year signal-caller also showed why he was the 2021 No. 3 overall NFL Draft pick at times.

Yet there weren’t too many stretches of absolute dominance on his part.

A big reason? Well, two. The quarterback was without San Francisco’s top offensive weapon, All-Pro wide receiver Deebo Samuel, who is now back after finally signing a long-awaited contract extension. And the 49ers’ makeshift offensive line was without starting tackles Trent Williams and Mike McGlinchey for much of that first week.

Understandably, Lance spent much of that first week not getting time to digest the routes his receivers were running in front of him but rather scrambling for his training-camp life, as the San Francisco Chronicle’s Eric Branch pointed out:

"Here’s what I wrote in my notebook during a three-play, red-zone sequence (“5” is Lance):“5 flushed right …”“5 flushed out …”“5 pressured up middle …”Lance was forced to scramble on four pass plays, was “sacked” by defensive end Nick Bosa and had a throwaway after he was forced to flee the pocket to his right."

Reports like this are commonplace for Lance over that first week.

However, as the Niners O-line has somewhat jelled and solidified, Lance understandably has shown improvement.

Trey Lance starts Week 2 of 49ers training camp on right foot

Well, it could have been his left foot. Whatever. Let’s not play with words too much.

Either way, Lance showed some serious improvement to kick off the second week of practices, as pointed out by Sports Illustrated’s Grant Cohn:

"[Lance] got swarmed by the pass rush yet again and didn’t throw a pick, which is progress. Completed 9 of 16 passes, got sacked three times, got two passes tipped at the line of scrimmage and threw one pass away. His best throw was a 15-yard dart on 3rd and 5 to Deebo Samuel which he caught between two defenders. Lance also completed a 20-yard pass to George Kittle up the right seam."

Previously, a good number of interceptions fell into the hands of defenders Lance didn’t see. And while it’d be nice to see a stretch of zero picks thrown, the increase in completions with zero turnovers is a nice contrast to what happened the week prior.

And while he went 3-of-8 in team drills on Wednesday, he didn’t toss interceptions and still managed two touchdowns in red-zone drills.

Read More: What Trey Lance showed us during first week of 49ers training camp

“He’s getting smarter by the day,” Samuel said of Lance, via 49ers Webzone. “I don’t think he realized that we do have the best defense in the league, and it’s going to be hard to complete the ball. Nothing is going to be on time right now in practice because our D-line is amazing but we’re figuring out ways to figure it out.”

Lance going through many of these challenges early should be viewed as a good thing, although it’s fair to worry a bit about what’s still a makeshift and questionable O-line.

Still, given the nature of the Niners defense at all three levels, the young quarterback showing some positive movement is nevertheless a good sign.