Though Kyle Shanahan has declined to come out and say it directly, all indications are that Jimmy Garoppolo will start Sunday for the San Francisco 49ers, who will open their 2021 season in Detroit.
Former NFL quarterback and current NBC analyst Chris Simms said that after watching No. 3 overall pick Trey Lance in the preseason, he would be inclined to let Garoppolo be the starting quarterback for the entirety of the 2021 season.
"...That's where the Trey Lance thing gets a little interesting. It's just, there's a real rawness to his game, where you just go 'You can't make him the starter this year,'" Simms said on Thursday's edition of PFT Live. "I would be scared to, with the way that that he looked in the preseason -- the missed throws ... the unawareness in the pocket ... he is clearly a year away, at least, in my opinion."
Simms' opinion is especially interesting here because in addition to his aforementioned qualifications, he was also collegiate teammates with Shanahan at Texas in the early 2000s. The two even have tattoos with each other's initials.
That's not to say that Simms has a direct line into Shanahan's thoughts on personnel -- he believed in the lead-up to the draft that the 49ers had traded up for Mac Jones, as opposed to Lance. But might Simms have a better idea of what Shanahan needs to see to feel comfortable starting someone at quarterback than the average observer? Yeah, that checks out.
And while Simms was impressed with some of the physical gifts that Lance flashed in the preseason (such as the play below), he came away much more concerned about some of the poor tendencies shown.
"Now, there's some highlight plays, like you see here -- I mean this is a rocket down the middle. Here's Shannahan coming up with a play that you're not going to see him run until Week 7 in the NFL season, but he did it to make Trey Lance look good and jumpstart his confidence.
"But, there's too many other missed wide-open, slam-dunk, high school throws that he should complete. And [there's] the unawareness in the pocket to take sacks. I think that's concerning and that's added more pressure to the situation overall as well."
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What's interesting to consider here is that Lance started just one full season at North Dakota State. Granted, Lance balled out in his sophomore season, throwing 28 touchdowns to zero interceptions while also rushing for 1,100 yards in 2019. But what would have been his junior year being pushed to the spring because of COVID-19 -- at which point Lance was already preparing for the draft -- means that he threw a grand total of 318 passes at NDSU. By comparison, No. 2 overall pick Zach Wilson, despite not becoming a top-tier NFL prospect until his junior year, had 837 career passing attempts at BYU. Lance is very limited on actual playing experience, and it's hard to know how much more prepared he can get if he isn't playing in games.
At the time of his selection in April's draft, we wrote that Lance was "the type of pick that could put you on a parade float or get your regime dismissed within the next five years." To this point, that still feels like a pretty fair assessment.
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