Kyle Shanahan Officially Hands Trey Lance the Keys to the 49ers
From the moment the 49ers spent three first-round draft picks on Trey Lance, the fate of Jimmy Garoppolo was sealed. The move clearly stated that either in 2021 or 2022, Lance was going to take over as the starting quarterback.
However, silence from the 49ers has put the whole quarterback situation in disarray. Mix that in with so many critical reports about Lance along with the failure to trade Garoppolo and you have yourself a long offseason full of tearing down and questioning whether the 49ers like Lance. But now all that tearing down and questioning officially becomes laughable.
At their press conference Tuesday for day one of training camp, Kyle Shanahan for the first time publicly handed the keys to Lance.
"We have moved on to Trey." said Shanahan. "We're starting camp out this way. We think Jimmy would've been traded if the surgery didn't happen and it did, he needs to do it, so there's no ill-will there at all. It's good to see that he is healthy, but now it's all just seeing how this will end up. All three of us are on the same page."
So there you have it. Any concern about Lance not being the starter this year is over with. Any idea that Garoppolo will bump him out and practice in training camp is quelled. It is unfortunate that Shanahan needed to publicly state this as it has been obvious Lance was going to be the starter. But again, with everything that had emerged this offseason, Shanahan needed to go out there and remove any doubt.
Best part of all is that Shanahan is instilling a tsunami of support and confidence in Lance. Hearing that should be a morale booster for Lance as training camp kicks off. It may have been unnecessary for Shanahan to state the obvious, but that is part of his job. He needs to be the leader figure for Lance and by publicly handing him the keys to the team, it showcases how he has Lance's back.
Shanahan was also asked that if Garoppolo remains for the foreseeable future that awkwardness and division can arise. And boy, did Shanahan have an authoritative response that was absolutely thrilling to hear.
"This is Trey's team. It's nothing against Jimmy, we made that decision a year ago and we're going with that. We're not going to mess around with that anymore. And I don't think we really have messed around with it that much, but once we made that decision we did, Jimmy understands that fully."
I like how Shanahan backtracked his comments about "messing around" because he knows that it is true to an extent. They could have come out to publicly state this support sooner and it could've helped ease the ludicrous criticism of Lance this offseason. The reality is that the criticism and slander would've happened regardless. Giving Lance this support now benefits Shanahan more since Lance can enter training camp with a great sense of comfort. Besides, Shanahan surely reassured Lance throughout the offseason anyway and that all of this slander comes with the territory.
"Jimmy knows we're going with Trey," Shanahan said. "Trey knows we're going with Trey and our team does."
