How Trey Lance can Reduce “Fastball” Passes to his Receivers

Baseball might’ve been a second calling for Trey Lance.

The velocity on the majority of his passes in preseason thus far has been a major takeaway of his game. Watching him just send a bullet to his receivers gave me a bit of Colin Kaepernick vibes. Throwing a fireball like that is necessary at times, but Lance needs to tone it down. Not every throw needs to be 100 m.p.h.

Kyle Shanahan gave his insight on how Lance can reduce “fastball” passes to his receivers.

“I just think a lot of it has to do with having your feet under you and seeing things at the right time and not having to speed it up so much because when you do speed something up and you have the type of ability he has, it's very hard to take something off of it. Some of the big arm quarterbacks that I have had, have some very similar issues. That's why you’ve got to have guys with good hands, but you also want to make it easier on them. And that’s stuff that I think he'll get better at the more that he plays.”

Going from Jimmy Garoppolo to Lance is a stark difference when it comes to power behind the pass. It makes a little more sense why some of the receivers have dropped Lance’s throws. Still, the receivers should be able to catch these balls. Both the receiver and Lance have to take it upon themselves to improve in these areas.

Lance shouldn’t be so eager to toss a missile at his receivers. Throwing between defenders or an angling safety are a couple of scenarios where his rocket-launcher arm will come in handy. But not on simple underneath routes, or routes where a receiver has to sit in the soft spot of a zone.

Like Shanahan said, he will learn over time as he continues to play. That is if Shanahan doesn’t continue to limit how much reps he gets as he’s been doing thus far. The same can go for the 49ers receivers. They too can learn over time by catching more fastballs from Lance and eventually learn how to make it a routine catch. Their job should come a lot sooner to adjust than Lance since Lance’s also involves decision making.

If Lance can start to brush up on this, then some drops will start to be cut down.