Film room: Assessing the 49ers quarterback situation part 2 - What Trey Lance does well

What does Trey Lance do well and how does he change the dynamic of the 49ers offense?

First up in this series we’ll look at what Lance does well and how he changes the dynamic of the 49ers offense. But if you haven’t read the introduction to this series, I highly recommend giving that a quick read to see how the 49ers ended up in this situation.

No matter where one falls on who they support for the 49ers quarterback, and there are good arguments to be made in favor of Trey Lance over Brock Purdy and vice versa, it’s worth a look at what Lance still brings to the table should he cement himself as the near term starter.

Fans shouldn’t be so quick to jump off Lance’s train yet. I know I’ve gone back and forth myself over whether or not he should start over Purdy, who came in and played well and did some stuff neither Trey nor Garoppolo have done that well. Does that mean that Lance can’t do it? Not at all. There are signs there that he would’ve put it together had he not been injured in week 2 of 2022.

If he becomes the starter and develops how we think he can, then Lance’s running ability and arm talent can put this offense on a much better footing long term over Purdy, who is still a physically limited quarterback in what he can do and the types of throws he can and can’t make that Lance can.

What Trey Lance does well and why the 49ers draft him

In week 1 of 2022, Lance and the 49ers played in a monsoon, yet the quarterback was able to somewhat efficiently move the offense by hitting some impressive throws throughout the course of the game. On Lance’s first downfield pass of the game, he was schemed up a defined read on a play action pass that he actually missed in the Texans preseason game when he did not recognize the crosser coming open.

Week 1, 1st quarter, 11:03 remaining

Here, the play call is a basic go route(streak) with a deep cross concept that is read high to low, streak to deep crosser. In the Texans preseason game, Lance hitched too many times into pressure and did not throw the ball. He completed this pass twice in this game.

The Bears came out on first down in cover-3, a tendency that Bears head coach Matt Eberflus put on game tape in all of 2021 as the Colts defensive coordinator. In the week 7 game in 2021 versus the Colts, the 49ers hurt the Colts defense with a heavy dose of play action passing on first down and here this play was no exception.

The vertical route by Jennings and the crosser by receiver Brandon Aiyuk causes some traffic over the middle of the field and lifts the coverage off of Aiyuk’s route, helping uncover in the wide open field.

Lance gets a well-defined read and throw but begins his throwing motion before Aiyuk uncovers from the traffic.

Week 1, 2nd quarter, 13:17 remaining

Later in the second quarter on second down, the 49ers called the same play and this time Lance hit one of the most impressive throws of his career so far.

This is a staple play action concept in the Shanahan offense with a deep vertical route on one side and a deep crosser coming from the other side. Throws like this remind fans why they drafted him. The timing and placement are as good as any that the top quarterbacks in the league throw.

The Bears played cover-3 here on second down.

The safety bails with the vertical route and the corner starts to carry Aiyuk as well, a minor coverage bust where the defender should have passed off the deep route and cut the crosser.

The coverage rotates to the vertical route, leaving safety Eddie Jackson and linebacker Roquan Smith to sink under the crossing route. Lance looks for Aiyuk on the go route but comes off and back to the crosser just as corner Jaylon Johnson and peels off late and back to McCloud.

With the window closing, Lance rips the pass over the outstretched hands of Roquan Smith and into the hands of Ray Ray McCloud for a 20 yard gain. A fraction of a second later and that pass might be picked off.

He had another big time throw from the far hash on a flag route in soggy conditions but unfortunately Aiyuk was flagged for offensive pass interference.

Aiyuk is running a flag route that turns into an out route, likely modified because the 49ers did not want their receivers making a ton of cuts on the field. At the top of his route, Aiyuk extends his arm to get separation, which he did not need to do, and got flagged for it. Lance drilled him in the chest. An elite throw in that weather. Unfortunately the official closest to the play saw the arm extension and separation and threw the flag.

Week 1, 3rd quarter, 13:28 remaining

On the first drive of the second half, Lance hit another explosive pass play on third down to Jauan Jennings on a slot fade route.

The play call is a slot fade concept to Jennings in the slot with a “now” slant underneath. Versus zone, it would create a pick and get a receiver open in space.

Against the Bears man coverage, it gets Jennings 1-on-1 versus the nickel corner and is a good call considering Jennings is the last person who a defense would think could be running a slot fade.

The defense is in man coverage on third down, meaning all Lance has to do is hold the safety on his drop back, plant and throw the fade.

The inside route and inside release by the tight end also works in tandem with Lance’s eyes and gets the free safety to rotate toward the middle of the field. The result is Jennings getting open on the nickel defender as Lance drops the pass in a bucket. The offense would kick a field goal after they could not punch it in.

Unfortunately Lance does not have a lot of tape in two seasons so I went back to 2021 as well and looked at Lance and the 49ers offense versus Houston in a critical must win week 17 game.

2021 week 17, 1st quarter, :18 remaining

The play call is a play action naked boot pass to his left. They fake split zone with Kittle running the slide route that looks like a sift block as Lance boots out to the left.

Normally, the coach would want his quarterback throwing to Kittle as he’s open and is the first read in the progression. Behind Kittle is a deeper crossing route by Trent Sherfield, and a corner route by Aiyuk, creating a three level flood into the boundary.

As Lance rolls out left, he bypasses the slide route in the flat, pump fakes to slow the defender down, flips his hips, resets his feet, and launches a pass to Sherfield on the sideline for a first down.

It would have been perfectly fine to dump the ball off to his first read but that is not why they drafted him. The play action passing game has built in explosive passes and that’s what Shanahan wants play action to do: create an explosive.

That’s what Lance gives them. Sometimes the right answer (Kittle in the flat open) is not the best answer (the explosive pass play). If he wanted to, he could’ve easily tossed the pass to Aiyuk even deeper on the corner route.

2021 week 17, 3rd quarter, 13:34 remaining

As Lance settled down in the second half, he started to show his ability to work through his progressions and move defenders with his eyes.

On this play, Aiyuk is running a choice route from the left. To Lance’s right, Kittle is running the alert route (to be thrown if the matchup or coverage is favorable), with an underneath option on a stick china route.

The Texans are in cover-3. As Lance drops back, he moves the safety and the underneath linebacker away from Aiyuk. His quick look off suggests he might have been peeking at the alert route to see if there’s a favorable throw there.

Aiyuk is his first read in the progression though and he whips around and fires a bullet to Aiyuk who cut inside on the choice route versus a defender with outside leverage.

He moved the underneath linebacker just enough to open a throwing window to Aiyuk, who gained 43 yards after the catch.

The arm strength and accuracy on this throw were critical, as well as the timing, in ensuring he hit the window and kept his receiver from breaking stride.

2021 week 17, 4th quarter, 10:06 remaining

Something Kyle Shanahan loves to do with Lance is come back to concepts where Lance was just a split second away from making a great play but instead was late or never trusted what he saw.

Shanahan came back to his corner post concept, “Hiccup”, after Lance was late throwing the corner post the first time in the third quarter. The second time he called it, Lance read it out perfectly and threw the ball to Deebo in stride as Deebo flattened his route in front of the safety.

The Texans are in cover-6 and this time Lance sells the boot action across and gets the defense to move that. He sold it so well that the deep third corner to the offense’s left took himself out of the play and left an uncovered zone for Deebo to run to.

Deebo flattened out the route with the safety over the top of him and Lance threw the pass on a line to him from outside the opposite hash probably 50 yards away diagonally.

In his very first start in 2021 in Arizona in week 5, Trey showed all the ups and downs associated with a raw first round talent at quarterback. There were frustrating moments, “wow” moments, and everything in between. That was to be expected for a quarterback making his first ever start in the NFL.

The “frustrating moments” will be covered later in a piece showing what he needs to improve on in 2023. The “wow” moments, though, were plenty, and he made tight window throws, on time and on schedule throws, and throws off schedule on the move.

How Trey Lance changes the dynamic of the 49ers offense - run game

The reaction to the threat of the quarterback run from Lance can be seen in numerous plays throughout his short 3-and-a-quarter game stint as the starter. Several plays from week 2, 2022 just before Lance was injured, demonstrate how he changes the dynamic in the 49ers run game, which is already very efficient.

Early on in the game, the 49ers racked up good chunk yards on run plays against Seattle 6-1 fronts that are specifically designed to stop the zone running game the 49ers employ.

In the first play, the 49ers are running a split zone read on first down. The zone read mesh point holds the backside defensive end. Normally the backside defender would pursue down the line of scrimmage and chase down the zone run.

Here, the mesh point forces him to wait for the quarterback to declare his intentions to either give or keep, effectively taking him out of the play. The middle linebacker, also reading and reacting to the quarterback’s intent also has to slow play the run because declaring too soon could take him out of the play entirely.

Jordyn Brooks (No. 56) fits up in the interior reading zone run inside so Jeff Wilson, who ends up taking the ball, cuts to the front side edge and gains six yards.

In the second play, the 49ers are not running zone read but are still executing the read option mesh. The addition of this to any run play means that the defense has to also read this, causing them to hesitate long enough for the blockers to make easier angle blocks.

One of the 49ers favorite read option concepts to run with Lance is the quarterback counter bash. I have written extensively on the counter bash concept the 49ers installed during Lance’s rookie season but briefly, it is a counter read concept that distributes the opposite of how a counter run is executed.

On counter and counter read, the running back path is behind the pulling blockers to the play side. On QB counter bash, “bash” designates “back away,” meaning the running back path is away from the pullers while the quarterback path is behind them if the quarterback keeps it based on his read.

On the second drive versus Seattle in week 2, the 49ers called the run concept out of shotgun with Deebo as the H back. Lance probably should have kept this one but the run puts Deebo 1-on-1 w/DE who slow played the run with no scrape exchange help and forced the quarterback to give. Unfortunately, Deebo is a much better athlete than the Seahawks edge defender here. The linebackers, reading their run cues from the pulling blockers, fit into the interior of the front to take away the quarterback run.

However, Seattle has no nickel in the run fit because he's aligned outside the slot even though they know they're going to get a dose of QB counter bash in this game. They relied on their defensive end to stop the play for a loss and it nearly worked. However, Deebo manages to escape and with the linebackers tied up in traffic inside, he’s able to rip off a sizeable gain.

In part 2 of this quarterback series, we’ll look at the area Trey needs to improve on in 2023 to hold onto the QB1 spot on the 49ers.