Kyle Shanahan isn’t to blame for Trey Lance injury vs. Seahawks

Despite what some fans and analysts are saying online, head coach Kyle Shanahan accepts no responsibility and nor should he for the injury to quarterback Trey Lance. 

The San Francisco 49ers got things back on track with a comprehensive 27-7 victory over the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, and with other results going the way it did, the NFC West is now all locked on 1-1 with a reset headed into Week 3.

The big story in this game, of course, was the horrific broken ankle injury suffered by quarterback Trey Lance early in the game.

Lance requires surgery, and his season is over.

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

Former starter Jimmy Garoppolo took over admirably in the absence of Lance. Garoppolo was nothing special, but he expertly guided the team to a strong win over a divisional opponent and didn’t make any mistakes.

In the aftermath, some people have taken aim at head coach Kyle Shanahan for the usage of Lance. Lance got injured on a read-option play, opting to keep the ball and getting injured when a Seahawks defender fell across him and folded the leg in an awkward manner.

Sports Illustrated’s Grant Cohn, in particular, has taken aim, blaming Shanahan completely for the injury and claiming some vindication in doing so:

Allow me this very short but simple refrain: Shanahan doesn’t owe anyone an apology or an explanation, and any blame on him is misguided at best or flat out wrong at worst.

Why it’s unfair to blame Kyle Shanahan for Trey Lance’s injury

Lance is a dual-threat quarterback. He is a thrower, he is a runner. Shanahan ran the ball down the Seahawks’ throat early due to a combination of rain, (presumably) Lance’s struggles throwing in the wet in Week 1, and the fact it was working keeping the ball on the ground.

In sports, injuries do occur. They’re regrettable and devastating to the players involved, but even in a non-contact sport, it’s an all too common occurrence.

Shanahan called the plays that were working. If he abandoned the plays that were working and the Seahawks adjusted as the Chicago Bears did in Week 1, he would be criticized, too.

There’s no blame here. None on Lance who was doing his job, none on the Seahawks defender who broke his ankle in what was clearly an accidental occurrence while doing his own job, and not on Shanahan who called the play.

It’s easy to be Holly and Harry Hindsight and say Lance shouldn’t run too much, but to suggest it, in reality, is to say that Shanahan shouldn’t be taking advantage of the weapons Lance has.

If that’s the case, the 49ers should have just stayed put in the draft and taken now-New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones who’s a true pocket passer if it ever was one.

There is one caveat to this, and one that Cohn himself touched on, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it in the interests of fairness. Cohn called the decision to have Lance run “unnecessary” as the running backs were doing a good job. He also opined Shanahan ruined Lance like he allegedly did with quarterback Robert Griffin III when he was at the Washington Redskins (now Commanders).

Now, it’s true the running backs were doing well, but Cohn has left out that part of this was to do with the Lance read-option plays freezing the defense as well as the Seahawks not making some tackles in the backfield that turned out to be big gains for San Francisco. Cohn is not averse to hyperbole either, and the idea he’s “ruined” Lance is entirely too early an assumption to make even if one was to assign blame to Shanahan, especially as Lance had only ran the ball three times in the game including the carry that led to the injury.

Also left out is that the play was a read option and not a designed quarterback keeper. It sounds like a distinction without a difference, as one-half of the possibilities of such a player is Lance keeping it anyway. But as noted above, it’s this very offensive scheme that was allowing the Niners running backs to make the gains they were making against the Seahawks.

This is a horrible situation. Horrible for Lance who was making the team his own, horrible for Shanahan who has to deal with another injury to his starting quarterback, horrible for fans who were excited for the future of the team, and horrible for neutrals who hate the idea of a talented quarterback being cut down (or indeed, any player).

But not everything needs to have blame affixed to some party or individual. Shanahan did only what he can as a coach and called the plays that were working.

Sometimes the unfortunate occurs, but Kyle Shanahan is not a clairvoyant who ignored a crystal ball to do so.

What does the future hold for Lance and the 49ers’ long-term plans? We don’t know and we can’t know at this very second. But all we can do is take a deep breath and relax, wishing Lance all the very best in his recovery in the hope he’s back for the 2023 season, and back the team in Week 3 with a familiar name now back under center in Garoppolo.