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Fred Warner Explains how Trey Lance Has Improved in Practice

Trey Lance probably will start his second career game, and his first since Week 5. And according to his coaches and teammates, he's a totally different player now.
Grant Cohn|
Fred Warner Explains how Trey Lance Has Improved in Practice
Fred Warner Explains how Trey Lance Has Improved in Practice

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San Francisco 49ers

SANTA CLARA -- The 49ers haven't ruled out Jimmy Garoppolo yet for Sunday's game against the Houston Texans, but it seems highly unlikely he'll play.

And that means rookie quarterback Trey Lance probably will start his second career game, and his first since Week 5. And according to his coaches and teammates, he's a totally different player now.

Here's what All Pro linebacker Fred Warner on Wednesday about Lance.

Q: Kyle Shanahan said on Monday that Trey Lance's past four weeks have been his best four weeks since he has been here, and that the defensive coaches and players would say the same thing. What have you seen from Lance and, if Shanahan is right, what exactly leaps out to you about him?

WARNER: "Just his confidence has continued to grow and grow. Early on in the season working on the scout team, he was playing things a little safer, using his legs a lot just to run, didn't want to throw an interception. I had to pull him to the side and say, 'Look, Trey.' Frist of all, we weren't getting the work that we needed to defend balls down the field, and you saw that on game day. Also, just for his sake, I was like, 'Listen, this is your opportunity to take chances and develop in that part of your game. Take a chance. See if you can fit the ball into tight spaces. Can you throw on the run and complete a pass down the field?" After that conversation, he started to really grow. And now you see these crazy plays where he's just getting the ball right over guys' fingertips and tossing the ball downfield and making these great plays. It's just a confidence. You grow every year, especially as a rookie, every single day, pushing the limits. That's what I've seen out of him."

Quite an endorsement from quite a player. 

We'll see if Lance's newfound confidence transfers from practice to the games.

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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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