Kyle Shanahan confirms the worst: Trey Lance is done for the year

The 49ers suffered a devastating loss with Trey Lance suffering a serious injury in the Week 2 win over the Seahawks, and Kyle Shanahan says it’s of the season-ending variety.

The San Francisco 49ers might have enjoyed a convincing win over their longtime NFC West rivals, the Seattle Seahawks, in Week 2 on Sunday by ending up on the right side of a 27-7 tilt.

But flipping the rivalry on its head won’t be the storyline this week. It won’t even come close.

No, the Niners’ biggest story will be how second-year quarterback Trey Lance suffered what appeared to be a serious ankle injury late in the second quarter with San Francisco holding onto a 6-0 lead.

Lance, who was attempting his third interior run of the game, was landed upon by two Hawks defenders and then remained on the field in obvious pain before exiting on a cart and with a bubble cast on his right leg.

In his wake, the 49ers nevertheless managed to revert back to veteran quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, whose retainment in light of what was widely thought to be a swan-song 2021 campaign now seems to be a gift from heaven.

At least the Niners will remain a top playoff contender.

Kyle Shanahan confirms Trey Lance will miss the rest of the year

The exact specifics of Lance’s ankle injury aren’t yet known, at least not made public, but there were plenty of comparisons on Fox’s live broadcast of the 49ers-Seahawks game to the ankle injury suffered by Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott back in 2020 that limited him to five games.

Prescott returned, yes. But he was also much more experienced a signal-caller than Lance at that point in his career.

During the postgame press conference, head coach Kyle Shanahan confirmed his second-year quarterback will undergo surgery and will miss the rest of the season:

“He’s doing as good as you can,” Shanahan said of Lance after the game (h/t 49ers Webzone). “When I went out and saw him [after the game], he was just asking me about a couple of the plays before, about some of his reads and stuff. That’s the type of kid he is, and I’m hurting for him.”

Shanahan also said he regretted calling that kind of play but still fully believes in it.

Some Niners fans may disagree, though.

More importantly, Lance’s development as a starting quarterback just took a serious hit. Considering Lance had only one full year as a starter at the collegiate level, 2019, and played just one game in 2020 before San Francisco drafted him in 2021, added to the two-plus games he saw his rookie year, there’s no doubting additional reps were vital to his maturation.

Lance won’t get those now. And it’s anyone’s guess how that’ll impact his career when he returns to the field in 2023.