Steve Young Explains how Trey Lance can Become a Leader on the 49ers
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Steve Young has never been shy to voice his opinion on Trey Lance.
Whether it is criticism of Lance or hyping him up, Young has been a strong voice on him. More times than not, he has been a hype up voice, which is needed considering the majority of voices out there are slandering Lance.
On Tuesday, Young hopped onto Bay Area radio station 95.7 The Game with Damon Bruce and Larry Kruger to speak on an array of topics regarding the quarterback situation with the 49ers. One of those topics was how Lance can become a leader on the 49ers, which Young so vividly explains.
"No. 1 is to do the work," said Young. "You're not going to get anybody to follow you if you don't do the work. No. 2, everytime you are under the gun in the media, on the field, and what I mean is when the lights are on. When everybody is looking at you and they're looking for your reaction, something's bad happened, you've lost a game, you've thrown an interception, you're struggling and something's gone haywire.
"Practices, games, in the media postgame, during the week -- never allow, I call it mitigation, so that explaining all the reasons that are going haywire, own it. Be the one that does the Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Russell Wilson work. They own it. They don't pawn it off. They're not suddenly letting you know that their receiver turned the wrong way. You've got guy's backs, so that when it matters they know that Trey is good for it."
Lance is already proving and proven "No. 1" that Young suggests. You hear players like George Kittle, Brandon Aiyuk and such, and they all continue to say how Lance grinds. That he "puts in the work." It has not gone unnoticed with Lance, so with that he is hitting on all cylinders. All that is really left is for the real games to commence to give him a chance to be tested with some low points.
Young is precise on his "No. 2" point. This is why the 49ers hired Brian Griese. He's there to help Lance with those low points where he costs the team a game or plays atrociously because it is most likely going to happen this season. Griese acts as the safety net for it and with the hope that it doesn't eat away at his confidence. Once he's proven that those low points can be handled as an upstanding quarterback, then all Lance is missing is one last step.
"And then after you've handled those things, you gotta go win ball games," Young said. "You can do all those other things well and it'll give you a place to survive, but you will not thrive and lead the locker room until you win."
This is what has earned Jimmy Garoppolo such praise and to be overvalued by the 49ers. In 2017, the team was in shambles at quarterback until they ran the table with Garoppolo. He only cemented that popularity in 2019. Despite Garoppolo not being a direct cause for winning, the fact that he was a part of it means the players and coaches associate him with.
So all Lance needs to do is handle himself with low points well and win some games. Then and only then will Garoppolo be a thing of the past and for Lance to really be the general of the team.
