Former 49ers great Steve Young has consistently expressed his confidence in Trey Lance as San Francisco’s next starting quarterback. But, the two-time league MVP feels the second-year signal caller could have trouble with one thing in 2022.
Young believes Lance’s success as a starting quarterback relies on his ability to take adversity on the chin and keep moving.
“It’s going to be so iterative over time,” Young said in an interview with NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco. “He’s going to face how many filters and hurdles, the challenges. He’s going to be the old Mike Tyson [saying], ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.’ He hasn’t been punched in the face. And I mean this in a metaphorical [way].
“You’re going to get punched in the face 50 times. Different reasons, different times, different things that happen and you have to right yourself, figure out what to do through it and we have to watch you do it.”
For the majority of his rookie season after being selected with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2021 draft, Lance served as a backup option behind Jimmy Garoppolo. He ultimately finished his first year with a 1-1 record as a starter.
Young feels Lance is confident heading into this season — but he cautioned the young quarterback that confidence can go both ways.
“You’re going to watch Trey Lance for a couple games go, ‘I got this,’ ” Young said. “Trey doesn’t have it, you don’t have it. There are big are filters, There’s ‘I had a terrible game and people booed me at home’ filter. There’s a thousand things that have to happen that he’s got to live through and then we’ve got to watch how he responds.”
“These are not the things that he has seen before. He’s young. We’re going to have to watch him go through those filters. So much of the game, to get to where he wants to get is art. There’s an art part of it that you have to figure out on your own. It’s kind of like street smarts.
“It’s that guile that you kind of gain over a period of time that, ‘I get what’s happening over here and this is what I’m going to handle here.'”
Whether or not Lance gets off to a hot start in his first season as QB1 remains to be seen. But, he’s lucky to have a guy like Young in his corner along the way.