Film room: Assessing the 49ers quarterback situation part 3 - Where Trey Lance needs to improve
In the previous article, we looked at where Trey Lance excels as a quarterback. Today, we look at what he needs to improve on if he hopes to earn the starting job.
Trey Lance entered the 2022 season as the undisputed starting quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers despite the 49ers bringing Jimmy Garoppolo back to the roster after an offseason in which no team was willing to trade for him. Jimmy missed all of camp and restructured his contract to stay one more season.
Speculation about why this occurred came after Lance had a less than impressive outing in the final week of the 2022 preseason in Houston. Still, he entered week one as QB1 and would hold that until his injury late in the first quarter in week 2. Assuming Garoppolo was brought back as a backup plan in case Lance was benched is at least partially plausible if we just consider what the tape showed in preseason week 3, his rookie year tape, and training camp.
It’s also partially plausible the 49ers just wanted to have a good backup and were in a unique situation given that no other team wanted Garoppolo despite there being some quarterback needy teams prior to week one.
But let's just consider why it was possible the 49ers brought back Jimmy and why in 2023 now they have signed Darnold. Are there areas in Trey’s game that need improvement that could give Shanahan and the 49ers some reservations about where Lance’s development is headed? There sure are. That, combined with the current roster construction and talent available far outpaces the need to wait and develop a young quarterback. At least publicly, that’s how the 49ers see it.
But it is my belief that if they stick with him and see his development through, then these are correctable issues that come with time, reps, and more experience and his talent can elevate the offense to levels that Garoppolo and Purdy could not.
Lance’s biggest area of concern right now is not trusting what he sees in the quick game concepts he’s asked to execute and usually it takes several of the same play call to get comfortable with reading out the coverage and firing the ball on a quick one step drop in shotgun or a three step drop from under center.
Quick game decision making and not recognizing checkdowns
2021 week 5, 1st quarter, 15:00 remaining
On the first play of his very first start, Shanahan called a combined man/zone coverage beater concept that gives the quarterback the freedom to choose a side based on certain coverage shells.
The play call is a levels/lookie slant concept with the lookie slant to the right versus man coverage and the levels concept to the left versus zone. The lookie slant is also the hot read on the play, meaning it’s the route the quarterback should look for against the blitz.
The Cardinals are playing a fire zone 3-deep/3-under coverage.
The Cardinals defense walks the 5th rusher down late after the 49ers have already set their pass protection slide to the defense’s right side where the threat comes from presnap when Mack identifies the MIKE. It’s at this point when Lance sees the 5th rusher walked up to the line that he should flip the pass protection. If he doesn’t he has to account for the free rusher and get the ball out to his hot receiver.
He doesn’t flip the pass protection but he also doesn’t throw it. He drops back expecting to have time to hit a throw on his 3-step drop but after identifying the rush, it should almost be a catch and throw to the slot receiver to the right, Deebo. Instead, he escapes the pocket and picks up the first down with his legs. He had the same issue with a similar concept in his second start against the Texans in week 17 of 2021.
2021 week 17, 1st quarter, 1:35 remaining
This is a staple concept in the Shanahan quick game offense, Lion.
Lion is an all quick slant concept that’s read from inside to out but the decision has to be made as quick as possible before throwing, so much so that the quarterback should eliminate the first read if he sees something pre-snap that is not advantageous to throwing. From inside out, the quarterback should read the most favorable side as this is not a full field read.
The pre-snap motion tells him the Texans are in cover-1 man coverage. From here, the most favorable side is actually to his left on the quick slant by Brandon Aiyuk due to the deep middle safety being shaded toward Kittle. Instead, he looks to his right to throw the inside slant to Kittle.
However, a throw there would not have been a bad idea. On this play, as there are with many plays, there are answers that are better than others.
As he hits the top of his drop, he has the window to throw if he throws it right now to Kittle on the inside slant. He sees safety Justin Reid jump the slant and decides not to throw it but if throws this on time in rhythm, then he easily completes the pass to Kittle. He’ll see the routes develop on his drop back with more experience.
One other option he had was to work off Kittle and hit Deebo on the slant outside of Kittle but this takes somewhat more processing that comes with experience.
2022 week 1, 4th quarter, 9:53 remaining
Quick game concepts are some of the hardest to master because they require quick decision making skills and understanding and identifying what the quarterback is seeing pre and post snap in a matter of less than two seconds most of the time. That’s not easy. And Lance still struggled with it heading into week 1 of 2022.
On his interception versus the Bears, it was the result of an inexperienced quarterback versus a pro bowl safety rotating down late in robber coverage. And it was more just a good play by safety Eddie Jackson than anything, definitely something Lance can learn from and will.
The play call is a choice route to Jennings and a shallow crosser inside of him that pulls the coverage laterally for Lance to hit the choice route behind it.
The Bears are in man coverage on third down again here and playing cover-1 robber where Eddie Jackson is the robber safety rotating down to “rob” the middle of the field.
Jackson reads the play and rotates down at the snap. Lance is reading the choice route the whole way because it’s the correct throw here versus the coverage. Jackson jumps the route at the last second and picks it off. The reasons it was picked off were because 1) Jackson is a good safety and made a play and 2) Lance’s extra hitch step made the throw just a bit late.
He predetermined where he wanted to go so if he plants and throws off his first hitch, then it’s a completion that just beats the safety. It is something he’ll learn from. Unfortunately by this point in the game, it did not lead to conditions where either team could comfortably pass or move the ball and there is no use in digging into the later throws in a monsoon.
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2021 week 17, 2nd quarter :28 remaining
Another area where Lance struggles is getting to his check down when the play isn’t developed and the pass rush is imminent.
The concept is a dagger shallow concept, which is going to take some time to develop as the dagger and seam routes need to clear the zone defenders. There’s also a check down option and a shallow crosser available.
The Texans are playing Tampa-2 defense on this play and doing a pretty good job of obstructing the dagger and seam routes with zone droppers to those areas.
The middle hook zone dropper removes the seam route and the flat defender gains too much depth to throw the dagger route, leaving check flat open to the left with Kittle. The pressure gets there and he avoids it as he feels it and he should’ve thrown to Kittle on the check down. However, he kept his eyes downfield and tried to hit Deebo Samuel on the scramble drill but threw it behind him.
Third play, second quarter, 9:45 remaining
Lance did throw one interception in this week 17 game on a pass intended for Kittle down the sideline, the “leak” concept.
Leak is a play action shot play that gives the quarterback the option of throwing the leak route to the opposite side of the field as the defense flows up toward the line of scrimmage with the run fake.
The rest of the receivers are running traditional play action crossers/deep post and if the throw is there, then the quarterback should take. It wasn’t the decision that was bad to throw it versus cover-2, it was the throw itself and specific part of his drop back.
On the drop back, Lance gets his head around quickly but doesn’t sell the boot action to his right, a critical component for moving the defense away from the leak route. He moves very quickly to his left, causing the defense to stay put and the corner to sink under Kittle’s route.
However, the throw was there if he layers it over the corner and in front of the safety. He has the ability to do this but said himself in the post game that he short armed it. There was definitely room to work with with a little more air under it.
Dropping his eyes
A common mistake young quarterbacks make, and make often, is not keeping their eyes downfield when the pocket starts to get muddy. Lance did this several times against the Texans pass rush in the week 3 preseason game. And as soon as it happens, the play is all but over. There is virtually no chance to recover once the quarterback takes his eyes off the routes.
The 49ers are running “rider,” a play action shot play that creates an explosive pass by either throwing the go route (first read) or hitting the deep crosser under it (second read) in the space vacated by the deep safety.
The quarterback’s read is high to low and locating where that safety is at. If the receiver is 1-on-1 with the corner with no safety help, the quarterback heaves it downfield. If the safety helps the corner on the go route, then the quarterback should come back to the second read and hit the wide open crosser.
Lance fakes the run, turns and locates the go route. I do not think he anticipated the safety being there because his hitches in the pocket, while being too quick, also looked like he he predetermined where he wanted to go and loaded his lower body to hit that deep shot.
Two things are wrong here: first, he needs to slow down his process in the pocket just a bit here. He took two big and fast hitch steps and stepped right into the pass rush. Second, he dropped his eyes as he did this.
Slowing down his footwork here would have enabled him to keep his eyes downfield and allowed his right tackle to block the edge defender, or at least keep himself out of the spin move a second or two longer for him to hit Deebo on the crosser. As Lance takes those hitch steps, he should already have confirmed the first read and be ready to hit Deebo on the crosser.
Not anticipating throws
One of the benefits of shotgun drop back passing is it allows the quarterback a bit more time to survey the defense. It eliminates two drop back steps and gives the quarterback a better field of vision as he’s already at or near the point at which he drop back from under center. It should help Lance identify the coverage rotation and hit the throw he wants.
The Texans are rotating to cover-2 from a single high safety shell, as they so often did in this game. Lance’s first read is Kittle on the stick route. As he takes the snap, he’s looking right and should see the safety bailing to a deep half, which should clue him into the underneath coverage and a throwing lane for the stick route between the flat corner and the seam dropper.
This should almost be an automatic read and throw but the pass rush gets through and Lance’s feet speed up his processing by forcing him to scramble. He should theoretically hit the top of his drop and throw to Kittle after he has identified the coverage. Instead he’s unable too. On a positive note, he was able to get the ball out to his check-down and did not look to force a throw anywhere on the field.
In the week one game in Chicago, Lance also hesitated to pull the trigger to his first read when it was wide open on a deep in route primarily because he dropped his eyes to the rush when the defender flashed in the pass rush lane.
Both outside receivers are running deep in-breaking routes, a mirrored concept where they want to hold and either high-low or horizontally stretch the curl/flat defenders on the outside.
The Bears are in straight cover-3 here.
Everything is perfect right up until Lance pulls the ball down to escape and look for his checkdown. Brendel held the block just long enough for Lance to rip this pass. Lance makes the right read, holds off the linebacker out of the throwing lane with his eyes, winds up to throw but pulls back when the defensive tackle races up the middle. There was a large enough window to rip this pass in there to Aiyuk but he hesitated slightly and the result was a two yard loss.
Trey Lane 2023 Outlook
Trey Lance has a lot to prove this offseason and he will get his shot when OTA’s and minicamp start later in May. The 49ers added Sam Darnold to the quarterback room, presumably as insurance and to insulate themselves from future quarterback injuries that could derail the season.
It’s unclear who the 49ers prefer to be their QB1 in 2023 and some might say that Purdy is the leader in the clubhouse, like Lynch recently stated. Add in the reports this week about the 49ers fielding calls for a possible trade for Lance and the speculation continues to mount that Lance’s days in San Francisco are numbered.
Kyle Shanahan has said very little about the position other than talking about the current state of both injured quarterbacks and there’s always the possibility that his preferred quarterback is Lance. What is clear though, Darnold was brought in to be at the very least QB2 with the chance to be the starter if the unthinkable happens to either Lance or Purdy again or if one or both of them fall short of expectations. Darnold is an insulating move if nothing else. His contract is full of incentives, incentivizing the 49ers to want to turn to him as little as possible.
The truth of the matter is, Trey was, and still is, a raw and unfinished product. And he played like it, with mind boggling rookie mistakes to elite throws made in difficult situations. This was to be expected. Missing 2022 didn’t help his on-field development and now he is facing the first real test of his young career while being just 22 years old. The issue for me personally is that Trey is talked about by fans like he’s started a half season of games or more and that he’s a bust. He’s started and finished just 3 games with 2 of them being for injury to Jimmy Garoppolo.
Lance knows what he has to do and all he wants is a chance to compete and show he can do it. The tape, despite his limitations, show his high ceiling and what he brings to the 49ers offense. Can he put it together and hold off both Darnold and Purdy? We’ll find out later this summer.