49ers film room part 2: Breaking down Trey Lance's return to action - the good

There's too much to unpack from Trey Lance's first game action since his 2022 week 2 injury so this will be a 2 part series looking at the bad and good.

In the first article, I looked at what Trey did not so well. Missed reads, unnecessary sacks, putting the ball in harm’s way, all still areas that he struggles with and he didn’t seem to make much improvement this offseason. Granted, he was coming back from a season-ending ankle injury, but he has been on the field taking reps since day 1 of the offseason program.

Still, there were signs that showed us that if somehow he can get regular season reps on the 49ers or elsewhere, then there is a very good possibility he could develop into a quality starter with an above average arm talent. But that is going to require a minimum of 2 to 3 years of consistently starting and stacking games. Even some of the game’s top 10 quarterbacks didn’t break out until their 3rd year like Josh Allen and Joe Burrow. And that’s after they played multiple games.

Much of the post-game commentary after this game surrounded the poor performance of the second team offensive line and while that was an issue, Lance’s best plays (aside from one errant pass) actually came when the offensive line broke down and allowed pressure or when receiver’s made mistakes, forcing him to go off-script. Then he ended the second quarter with 2 high quality throws that showed off his arm talent.

Timing and rhythm throws

Once Lance settled down, he made some throws that show why many fans still have some hope that he can put it together. Two throws in particular late in the second quarter show this.

Both plays were on variations of their dagger concept and both throws went to the second progression. The throws are a good look at how the quarterback progresses through each read, what they’re looking at to confirm where to go, and the adjustments they make when the defense throws out a changeup to make the quarterback think a little longer.

On the first play, Lance confirms post-snap that the coverage is cover-3 buzz where the weak safety rotates down to cap the crosser from the slot. The zone match defenders pass off the crosser but this removes the strong hook nickel defender from the seam as he passes off the crosser.

Lance sees this and flips to the dagger and throws as receiver Chris Conley is breaking open over the middle. The timing here is perfect because the pass arrives on a rope right in the middle of the defenders converging on the throw just before they get there.

The second play came before the end of the half and shows a good adjustment by Lance to not lead his receiver into danger. Both the receiver and him were on the same identical page here.

This time, the Raiders zone drop into Tampa-2 coverage. In Tampa-2, the middle linebacker is a middle zone runner, allowing the safeties to sit deeper. The middle runner is there to discourage in-breaking routes and forcing the quarterback to throw elsewhere as the defenders around the middle runner fan out. 

The middle runner eliminates the crosser/seam read so Lance progresses to the dagger from Conley again. But Lance knows as soon as he throws, that middle runner is going to peel and look for the ball on the in-breaking route so he has to put it in a spot that protects Conley. His throw throttles Conley down and layers the pass over the strong hook defender simultaneously. Incredible throw, incredible catch, and really good processing from Lance.

There were 2 plays previous to this that Lance didn’t fully trust or recognize what he was seeing on stick concepts. They came back to the same stick/spacing concept in the 2nd quarter that they ran on the very first play of the game and Lance decisively planted and threw to his first read.

This is the same play as his first sack of the game, covered in part 1, just flipped.

Lance' gets his pre-snap indicator from the overhang and goes the opposite way to the stick/flat side of the concept. The overhang defender in the Raiders cover-3 shell was to the weak side, leaving the strong curl/flat defender playing the curl first before the flat. And on this play there was no bust by the running back.

Later on this drive, Shanahan called another stick concept, double stick or disk or both stick, that’s run from a 3x1 or 3x2 formation. The stick routes come from the left side from the tight end and then the #2 receiver in the slot. The backside, and I think there was a bust here, I think is supposed to be running a “lookie slant” but that’s not what happens.

On his drop back, Trey notices that there is nowhere to go with the double stick routes to the left so he looks back to the right but for some reason Willie Snead has run his route and hidden himself behind the linebacker, giving Lance no throw initially and forcing Lance to go off-script where he scrambles right and flings a pass out to Snead on a scramble drill.

Pocket movement

Lance did display some ability to navigate a muddy pocket as well and managed to avoid taking 2 more sacks due to his athleticism.

On the first play here, Lance doesn’t flinch with defenders falling at his feet in the pocket. First, the running back takes down one defender with a clean block but he lands at Lance’s feet. Nick Zakelj (No. 63) blows his blocking assignment by not picking up the jailbreak blitz from the linebackers, giving the Raiders a free rusher in Lance’s face. Lance scans his progressions and comes back to Charlie Woerner but the pass is off-target.

It looks like initially the defender hit Lance’s hand just before he threw it but also Woerner can’t get off the press coverage and gets held up on his route, preventing him from adequately cutting back inside and throwing off the timing. Had he gotten a clean cut out of his break, he might have been in a better position to catch the pass. Great play from Lance to avoid the pressure.

Later in the second quarter, the 49ers called a mirrored swirl route concept (7-stop/corner stop routes) after Lance was sacked on first down.

Lance would have had a throwing window to the right but as soon as he tried to hitch to throw there, Zakelj was laying on the ground at his feet after getting tossed by the defensive tackle. He went into scramble mode with no throwing window and found his tight end on the check-down after going off-script. Both of the above plays are proof that he needs playing time.

Outlook

Initially I was going to keep this to one longer article but that I felt that there was just too much to cover from Lance’s preseason snaps because they literally showcased the best and worst of everything we’ve seen from him in the past and I wanted to be fair.

Overall the performance was more discouraging than anything because despite the limited reps, there were a few things highlighted in the first article yesterday that I felt he should have made strides with.

I also didn’t show the sacks that weren’t his fault because they add no value to anything here other than to say the offensive line depth is in trouble if a couple of starters go down. I also decided against showing the first of his dropped interceptions because Shanahan was okay with the first one and actually liked that he ripped that pass into the end zone. Trey also made a bad decision on the 4th and 2 zone read by giving to the running back.

A lot of fans killed Troy Fumagalli for missing the block on the defensive end but that’s not his assignment as the arc blocker on zone read. He bypasses the end to the second level so Lance can read the defender there.

He made other throws and movements that bailed out a generally poor performance by the backup offensive line but those are the kinds of plays to be expected from a player of his caliber of talent.

Speaking of his talent, he has more than enough to be a capable starter in this league. But the plays above show that his lack of experience is the one thing holding him back. He processes the playbook correctly right up to the point of throwing and then he distrusts what he sees. He needs the reps. Unfortunately the 49ers are not in a position to give them to him with the roster construction as it currently is. What’s less certain too is when that will ultimately happen. It may never happen with San Francisco.