Trey Lance injury: 49ers will feel these 3 massive ramifications

The 49ers lost Trey Lance to a season-ending injury in Week 2, and there’ll be some long-lasting ramifications the Niners can’t get around.

On the surface, the 2022 San Francisco 49ers are surprisingly built well enough to absorb what’s their latest installment of horrific injury news: losing second-year quarterback Trey Lance to a season-ending ankle injury amid the Niners’ Week 2 win over the Seattle Seahawks.

In what had turned into a strange pre-Week 1 development, San Francisco opted to keep the quarterback Lance was supposed to replace, Jimmy Garoppolo, instead of trading or releasing him.

Now, in the wake of Lance being done for the year, the 49ers simply turn to the veteran who has been the starter since the end of 2017.

That’s the surface-level takeaway. Garoppolo gets another chance instead of watching from the sidelines, which is great for him and his prospects for 2023 and beyond.

However, the Niners are about to feel a lot of notable ramifications and some serious fallout in the wake of Lance’s injury.

Such as the following.

Ramification No. 1: 49ers won’t get away from Trey Lance, Jimmy Garoppolo controversy

Good thing San Francisco retained Garoppolo, right?

This wasn’t the plan, though. Garoppolo was supposed to be elsewhere by this point, putting to bed all the controversy and headaches that were associated with the Lance and Jimmy G duo dating back to spring of 2021 when Lance was drafted at No. 3 overall.

More on the impact to Lance in a moment, but let’s go ahead and assume Garoppolo plays at the level he displayed during the 49ers’ last two playoff seasons, 2019 and 2021.

Should that be the case, it doesn’t seem overly likely the talk of the Niners simply moving on from Garoppolo in 2023 when he’s set to become a free agent will go away.

Regardless of which quarterback fans and analysts prefer, it’s hard to get away from the media circus that stemmed from having both on the roster at the same time. Perhaps only the professionalism seem from both quarterbacks has avoided the larger headache, but it doesn’t make the headache go away entirely.

And it sure appears as if that headache and circus won’t go away now for another full year.