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Is Chargers HC Jim Harbaugh fixing former 49ers QB Trey Lance?

This is what Harbaugh does.
Grant Cohn|
Jul 21, 2025; El Segundo, CA, USA; Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Trey Lance (5) at training camp at The Bolt. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Jul 21, 2025; El Segundo, CA, USA; Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Trey Lance (5) at training camp at The Bolt. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

Last time we checked in with Trey Lance, he was the Dallas Cowboys' third-string quarterback after getting discarded by the 49ers.

Remember, they spent three first-round picks plus a third-rounder on Lance, who was 20 when they drafted him, he had taken a year off during Covid, and he played at a glorified community college -- North Dakota State.

Then, after just four career starts and a gruesome leg injury, the 49ers gave up on him and found Brock Purdy, who seems to have a promising future. The 49ers just made him the seventh-highest-paid player in the NFL.

Meanwhile, Lance is trying to save his career. He currently is competing with Taylor Heinicke to be the Chargers' backup quarterback. And although it's still early, Lance seems to be doing well on his new team.

Notice in the video above, Lance throws the ball deep down the sideline. That's a throw that 49ers quarterback don't usually attempt because the system is predicated on making 12-yard passes over the middle. Those passes don't require a strong arm -- they require anticipation, touch and accuracy. And they're dangerous throws into traffic. So when they're not completed, they're often intercepted.

Lance has a strong arm and he's not particularly accurate over the middle. So, Jim Harbaugh is doing something the 49ers never did with Lance -- playing to his strengths, helping him protect the football and letting him be an athlete. As opposed to Kyle Shanahan, who wanted Lance to be a robot.

In college, one of the things Lance did best was protect the football. He threw just one interception at North Dakota State. Expect Harbaugh to bring out that version of Lance, which is the best version of him, just as Harbaugh brought out the best version of Alex Smith when everyone had already written him off.

This is what Harbaugh does. Lance finally found the right coach for him.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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