Emmanuel Acho is among those who are not expecting great things from Lance.
Acho, a former NFL linebacker who works as an analyst for FOX Sports, was in the midst of a segment where he and fellow ex-NFL star Marcellus Wiley shared their thoughts on second-year quarterbacks.
Acho graded Lance a 2 out of 10 and claimed he was being nice with putting him that high.
“From everything I’ve heard from people within the locker room, and outside the locker room, he just ain’t it. He just ain’t got it,” Acho said. “There’s a reason they call him ‘one play Trey’ and a reason he only started one game. The Niners chose to play Jimmy Garoppolo with a broken thumb over their top-three first-round pick. There’s a reason for that.”
Wiley gave Lance a 5 out of 10 while adding that he had heard the same concerns regarding the QB.
“I’ve heard exactly what you’ve heard, but there’s also a part of me that’s like ‘yo, this dude is a talent.’ Everyone also talks about how his ceiling is so high, and maybe the 49ers’ circumstance is why Trey Lance hasn’t been on the field in full. If we’re on a team that has Super Bowl aspirations, we don’t have time to slow down. I don’t know if they trusted the rookie to do that. He’s had a season to go through, and offseason to come back, I think they think this is the guy for them. But I don’t know what to think.”
Jimmy Garoppolo is still on roster for the San Francisco 49ers, but 2022 is the year Trey Lance will take over at quarterback.
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Lance told reporters this week that he was dealing with an injury to his right index finger all year long, which made throwing the football difficult in his first season.
“I kind of dealt with my finger throughout the season, so for me, it was kind of getting that back, and getting healthy, and feeling back to myself,” Lance said, via 49erswebzone.com. “Like, towards the end of the season, I wasn’t the best version of myself overall. It was a long season, a long pre-draft process, of me not being in school. Everyone says it’s going to be, but you don’t really realize it until it happens.
“And I think the finger, for me, was the biggest thing just as far as throwing the ball. I kind of had to learn to throw the ball differently without kind of using my pointer finger, I guess because of just where it was at throughout the year. But now, I feel like I’m in a great spot, health-wise, and throwing the ball well, and feeling really good.”
In 2021, Lance threw for 603 yards, five touchdowns and two interceptions. He also rushed for 168 yards and another score.
He won one of his two starts, a Week 17 matchup against the Houston Texans in which he completed 16 of 23 passes for 249 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.
