After trading up for the No. 3 overall selection in the NFL draft, the San Francisco 49ers made an equally bold move Thursday night by using the pick on North Dakota State quarterback Trey Lance.
That the Niners chose Lance came as a bit of a surprise after they had been connected to Alabama’s Mac Jones for more than a month. The Niners did not tell their coaches or scouts the pick, and sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that they didn’t know the team was selecting Lance until the pick was announced.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan said the team was high on both Lance and Jones and kept their pick a secret because it didn’t want to “sway people.”
“We have been very high on Trey since the very beginning, since day one. Yes, the person everyone else is speculating about, we liked him, too,” Shanahan said, referring to Jones. “To go through this whole process where no one has known how John and I feel and felt this whole time, we do that because you don’t want to sway people in this building. You want everyone to work their butts off and give you their honest info. That’s why we don’t share at all how we felt.”
The selection of Lance muddies the future of Jimmy Garoppolo, who led the Niners to their Super Bowl LIV appearance but has been plagued by injuries in his four seasons in San Francisco.
The Niners had been adamant that Garoppolo would remain their starting quarterback, regardless of their decision with the No. 3 pick, but that stance softened earlier this week when Shanahan would not guarantee anyone’s roster spot beyond the draft.
Shanahan said he regretted the remark and that he spoke with Garoppolo about it “right away.”
“Jimmy’s situation is, if he isn’t here on Sunday I would be disappointed, because Jimmy is a QB who played one year and took us to a Super Bowl and played at a very high level,” Shanahan said. “He has had some unfortunate injuries, but I believe in Jimmy as a person and he has shown what he can do on tape.”
Shanahan made it clear that he wants Garoppolo to remain with the 49ers.
“Now we made this move, so it’s obvious what I hope and believe with this guy coming in,” he said. “But it would be a very tough situation if Jimmy is not on our team. I want Jimmy to be here. I want this kid to be brought along. I want to see how he does. And if it turns into a competition, it turns into a competition. I would be excited about that if he showed he was ready for it and stuff. But we know where Jimmy is at.”
Lance said that he’s excited to learn from Garoppolo.
“Everything he’s done, he’s a mentor for me, and I’m super excited to get there and learn as much as I can,” Lance said.
San Francisco’s selection of Lance marks the earliest that a team only one season removed from a Super Bowl appearance has drafted a quarterback in NFL history, surpassing the Green Bay Packers‘ selection of Don Horn at No. 25 in 1967, according to Elias Sports Bureau research.
The Lance pick was the final part of a process that began with San Francisco’s trade last month with the Miami Dolphins, who received the No. 12 overall pick this year, first-round selections in 2022 and 2023 and a third-round compensatory choice in 2022.
In the immediate aftermath of the March 26 blockbuster trade, the Niners were linked to Jones, Ohio State’s Justin Fields and Lance, who is considered an unknown because of his lack of experience but also a player with plenty of upside.
Shanahan said the team knew “exactly where we were going and what we were doing” when it made the trade and that he felt speculation that the team that would take Jones could be used to their advantage.
“I was in Mexico the day we made the trade and within hours at least two people are out there speculating that their opinions are they think we are taking Mac Jones, and ever since then I watched every person assume that was accurate,” Shanahan said. “We didn’t feel that way from the very beginning. I wouldn’t have said there was no chance we wouldn’t have. We were going to go through this process.
“I know how we felt about Trey the whole time. To watch that happen and watch everyone kind of assume because a couple people say something that’s exactly how you feel, and we weren’t going to work to correct that. I felt that could be an advantage for us.”
Shanahan has said that the organization was hoping to land an “elite” quarterback who can “sit in that pocket and play that position,” but also mentioned candidates who can “run around and make off-schedule plays.”
Although Lance comes with just 17 starts — all at the FCS level — the Niners believe he has the mental and physical skills to eventually morph into the ideal Shanahan quarterback.
In his abbreviated college career, Lance was equally adept using his arm and his legs to lead the Bison to a national championship in 2019. He threw 28 touchdown passes with zero interceptions as a redshirt freshman that season and became the only FCS player in the past 25 years to throw for at least 20 touchdowns and no interceptions. He also rushed for 1,100 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Perhaps most important for the 49ers, Lance was the lone prospect among the top five quarterbacks to spend any meaningful amount of time playing under center and running many of the play-action concepts that San Francisco consistently employs.
Thirty percent of Lance’s college dropbacks came from under center, and 24.3% of his dropbacks from under center were play-action pass attempts. He was 53-of-77 for 847 yards with 12 touchdowns and no interceptions on those play-action passes from under center.