Trey Lance is Confident That Brandon Aiyuk Will see his Usage Increase for 49ers

Training camp MVP Brandon Aiyuk was massively underutilized in Week 1, but Trey Lance is confident Aiyuk will get his chances to feast.

Week 1 overreactions never fail in the NFL.

For the San Francisco 49ers, one overreaction from their embarrassing loss to the Bears was the underutilization of Brandon Aiyuk. 2022 is supposed to be a breakout season for Aiyuk and he could've easily feasted on an average Bears defense. Unfortunately, Aiyuk received only THREE opportunities in the game. Two receptions on two targets and one carry. 

Considering he was lights out in training camp, you would have expected him to be featured on a couple more plays. The rain didn't even become an issue for the passing game until the fourth quarter anyway. Still, it is just one week and the 49ers can rewrite that wrong. That is how Trey Lance feels as he is confident that Aiyuk will see his usage increase for the 49ers through the course of the season.

"It's kind of what the defense dictates," explained Lance on the lack of opportunities for Aiyuk. "He made a couple of big plays and he's had a great training camp, so still all the trust in the world, definitely wasn't anything like that. I know you guys freak out when B.A. only has, you especially (Grant Cohn), when B.A. only has a certain amount of touches, but it's definitely not like we go into a game and be like, 'Okay, we're gonna get Deebo the ball eight times,' or whatever it may be. Deebo is obviously going to get more touches cause he's in the run game."

Samuel getting more touches than Aiyuk is definitely natural. Lance is spot on there, but where he fails to see the issue is the opportunities overall. Aiyuk never saw another jet-sweep or target in the receiving game. He is lethal with the ball in his hands as well, but neither him or Kyle Shanahan decided to make him a focal point on a play again after he ripped off 31 yard play in the first-quarter. 

Lance cites the way the defense dictates the throws, so he gets more of a pass than Shanahan. At least Shanahan can find something in his bag of tricks to scheme Aiyuk open and make him the designated target. He did it already with the handoff and first-quarter chunk play. Shanahan was just entrenched with running the ball and giving it to Samuel. He underutilized his offense in this game with the lack of opportunities to Aiyuk. That must not happen again.

And that is something that Lance believes won't.

"He's a huge weapon for us and he's done a great job," Lance said. "That'll start to show up more and more. I promise."