Trey Lance can put Pressure on Kyle Shanahan With Strong Outing Against Chargers

Time is running out for Trey Lance to win the starting quarterback job.

With only two preseason games left and limited competition practices, all signs are pointing towards Jimmy Garoppolo being the Week 1 starter.

While Lance was flashy and showed promise against the Chiefs, it wasn't a show stopping performance. Had he done that, then all of a sudden Lance would likely see more first-team reps. But Kyle Shanahan has barricaded Lance from those reps in practice. Lance has consistently shown to do well against the second-team, yet Shanahan hasn't allowed him to measure up with the starters. It wasn't until the second joint-practice with the Chargers that he did so. There is really only one chance left for Lance to garner reps with the starters and to contend for the Week 1 starting job.

Lance can put pressure on Shanahan with a strong outing against the Chargers.

He cannot replicate his performance against the Chiefs. Doing so will cement his role as a backup. His gameplay needs to put a smile on Shanahan's face. There needs to be generated excitement from the game that Shanahan feels where he starts to have flashes of what the season would look like with Lance as his starter. That is how good of a performance Lance needs against the Chargers.

Now I know all of the star players of the Chargers will not be in action (Joey Bosa, Derwin James, Chris Harris Jr., etc.), but that actually means Lance has no choice but to light it up. If he has hit-or-miss drives against some backups, then it will just confirm to Shanahan that Lance will be the backup. When asked about the trajectory of Lance starting Week 1, Shanahan had this to say:

“They’re competing their assess off. They’re doing a good job. It’s not about one guy versus the other guy. It's about how good can Trey be, how good can Jimmy be. I think both of them, when you go through camp, you go through games, you go through practices, it's up and down throughout the whole thing. So that's why I don't sit and go ‘Who's ahead of the other, what’s going on,’ after each practice. They both bring different elements to our team. Both of them, I believe, can play at a high level and I’m trying to see which one does that the best for us.”

That’s great and all with what Shanahan said, but plenty of head coaches have made “declarative statements” regarding their veteran quarterback starting. The Raiders did that with Matt Schaub and Derek Carr. Sure enough, Carr lit it up in the preseason and the Raiders never looked back. The same thing happened with the Seahawks when they signed Matt Flynn and drafted Russell Wilson. How did that turn out?

The point is coaches can easily make the switch to their rookie so long as they can back it up. That is where Lance comes in. He needs to play superbly against the Chargers to setup a turning point decision for Shanahan against the Raiders next week. This is his "last stand" essentially because the high-level reps are running out. Once the regular season nears, practice turns into rehearsals for the game plan for the upcoming opponent, which means Lance will hardly see first-team reps.