The San Francisco 49ers have several reasons to keep Trey Lance, the No. 3 selection of the 2021 NFL Draft, on their roster here in 2023.
The obvious: Lance was taken third overall for a reason. The 49ers mortgaged a king’s ransom of picks to move up to No. 3 via the Miami Dolphins, and you simply don’t give up on a guy with only four stars under his belt.
Secondly, the 49ers still don’t know if Brock Purdy will be fully healthy as he continues to recover from surgery on a torn ACL. On top of that, the 49ers don’t know how 2022 “Mr. Irrelevant” will perform over the course of a full year.
So quite frankly, the 49ers have no reason to shop Lance unless they get an offer for their liking. Interestingly, the trade market for the once highly-touted Lance is reportedly cold right now.
Appearing on “The Pat McAfee Show” (h/t David Bonilla of 49ers Webzone), ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter revealed something interesting: The trade market for the North Dakota State product was never strong:
“There really was never a lot of interest in Trey Lance. For what they gave up and what they get back, which is not very much at all, it doesn’t make sense to trade him. There was no trade market, and Kyle Shanahan has said that they didn’t have any trade talks with teams. He’s not going anywhere right now. He’s there.”
Lance started the 49ers’ first two games in 2022 before unfortunately suffering a right ankle injury that ended his season. 11 weeks later, Jimmy Garoppolo suffered a season-ending foot injury that forced the 49ers to turn to Purdy.
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Purdy won all seven starts for San Fran last year (including the postseason). If he didn’t suffer a UCL tear in the NFC Championship Game, maybe the 49errs would be the team preparing for a Super Bowl title defense.
For now, Kyle Shanahan and company can take comfort in knowing that the 49ers have a very safe quarterback room heading into 2023 with Lance, Purdy and Sam Darnold.
