What’d Trey Lance and Justin Fields ever do to Mike Martz?
The former NFL head coach went scorched earth on the 49ers and Bears quarterbacks during a recent appearance on the 33rd Team podcast. Trey Lance certainly struggled at times during Sunday’s 19-10 loss to the Bears, as he went 13-for-28 for 164 yards, no touchdowns and an interception while rushing 13 times for 54 more yards. But he probably doesn’t deserve the bashing that Martz delivered through the microphone.
Lance overthrew tight end Tyler Kroft on what looked to be a surefire 32-yard touchdown in the first half and missed his targets on several occasions, but also made some eye-opening throws in tight coverage and showed decent pocket awareness. Martz didn’t see it that way. Like, at all.
Here’s the full text of Martz’s scathing criticism of Lance:
“I’ve never seen anything about this kid that was encouraging at all,” Martz said. “He really has to plant himself to make a good throw. He’s not a quick decision guy. Everybody’s shot in the rear about him for being a mobile guy making plays with his feet – he looked like a fullback looking around to stumble trying to run the ball, to me. He’s not Lamar (Jackson). I dunno what he is. He’s not a particularly good guy running with the football and based on what I saw today, he missed two guys completely by themselves. I know it was in the rain, but quarterbacks do that, you make those throws.
“I know this – he can only go up, he can only get better. He can’t get any worse than what he did today. I’ve never liked him. I still don’t like him. I’d like to know what he does so well, because he’s not a great passer, he doesn’t have good skills. Takes him a long time to set himself and throw the football. Misses easy throws. He’s not a particularly good runner. Other than that, he’s a hell of a player.”
Wow. A lot to unpack there. Seems like a bit of a personal attack on Lance from Martz, who hasn’t been in the NFL since serving as the Chicago Bears’ offensive coordinator in 2011. His last coaching gig was with the San Diego Fleet of the now-defunct Alliance of American Football. Lance was 11 years old when he left the NFL, so it’s hard to imagine they’ve crossed paths in the football world.
Maybe Martz just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, because he also ripped Fields a new one.
“I’m just shocked, shocked at the Bears,” Martz said. “They just took this quarterback, they spent a lot to get him, but ‘less-than-remarkable’ was the kindest thing you could say about him. I dunno if I’ve ever seen such a bad performance from a starting quarterback in his opening performance of the season like that. He was just completely awful. He really deflated the football team with his performance. When you get a quarterback that can’t do anything like that at all, defensively, you shut ‘em out basically for a half. You kinda lose hope. Right now, they’re a team without hope.”
Fields and the Bears didn’t look deflated when they were using the field as a slip-and-slide after he threw two second-half touchdowns and they scored 19 unanswered points.
OK, that game on Sunday was ugly. Lance and Fields didn’t play well. But it’s Week 1. Big yikes from Martz.
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