Trey Lances devolopment (it failed)

[Steve_DeBerg_Fan_420]

9 hours ago, Gridirongreat#9 said:

This might not be the spot for this but rather than create a whole new topic: Was Lance the better pick over Fields? From experience alone Fields was the better pick IMO. Lance didnt have a large enough sample size to say his floor is Fields ceiling. This is one pick that they have made that still doesnt sit right with me and now we have another year or two to wait to see what Lance can actually do. 

I feel like Fields was a poor scheme fit, so they went with Lance.  I'm not sure if it was the better pick, but I understand why they made the pick.  I think fields is faster, more experienced, more accurate, and has a stronger arm.  His repeatable throwing mechanics are really good.  He's also not very good in the short passing game, doesn't always move through reads fluidly, and has a below average feel in the pocket.  He runs into the back of dudes a lot.

 

Lance has shown great pocket awareness, and he is a very smart player that can move through his reads well.  His repeatable throwing mechanics are a little worrisome, but also not too far off.  He needed to make a couple of minor mechanical adjustments to get his balls coming out more accurately.  

I feel like Shanahan and Lynch drafted Lance's brain, but over rated lance's running ability by a significant margin.  I wonder if Lance looked like Daniel Jones, would they still think of him as a "dynamic runner."  Because he is not Dynamic as a runner.

[Forge]

11 hours ago, Gridirongreat#9 said:

This might not be the spot for this but rather than create a whole new topic: Was Lance the better pick over Fields? From experience alone Fields was the better pick IMO. Lance didnt have a large enough sample size to say his floor is Fields ceiling. This is one pick that they have made that still doesnt sit right with me and now we have another year or two to wait to see what Lance can actually do. 

I moved this into a different thread just so it didn't get buried in a very old GDT and I feel like this is topical to this thread. 

 

As for the question...dunno. None of these guys are really lighting it up regardless lol. 

 I liked Fields because I thought Shanny would help with his biggest problem: pocket awareness and play speed.  So much of this offense is already  point and click and because Fields was such a natural thrower of the football and could go anywhere on the field, I thought he would do well making the passing game more explosive while also giving the team that spontaneity in the pocket when things went down. 

But clearly there was something that Shanny didn't like. It doesn't seem like Fields was ever in play at all. I would guess that Kyle couldn't deal with what he did in the pocket. There were a few people in this forum that had real problems with his play in the pocket...I think StraightHate made a few good posts about it in the lead up to the draft. For me, I was fine because I was banking on Kyle to minimize those things just through scheme, tbh. 

Lance had such variance between where he was and what he could be. He has a lot of flaws in his games that need time and experience to fix and even then you don't know if he's actually going to be able to fix them. In college, I thought he was slow in terms of hitting his targets. Always just seemed a second to slow to release and put the ball where it needed to be. And his accuracy was also meh (made to look even worse by the fact that Mac and Fields were insanely accurate). Even now the talk is that he's just randomly dirting balls on easy throws. Will any of this get better? I don't know. I don't know that his motion is ever going to speed up, but I think the decision making will get a little faster with time. I think that is a reasonable expectation. But I think he'll always just randomly miss receivers out of nowhere, but I have no idea how often. 

I'm not super bullish on Lance at this juncture. I think he'll probably be fine, but whether he's fine because he's in Shanny's offense or just because of his own talent, I have no idea. I think that there is maybe some truth behind some of the reports that came out and there's probably some merit to questioning how impressed the staff has been with Lance since he got there, and that's a really bad sign (Silver continues to push this home and I really don't think that there is malicious intent behind it just listening to him). But  the moment that the Bears picked Fields I thought his career was in trouble and said as much lol. Is Fields' career arc different in SF? I have no idea. 

So maybe we should have just sat tight and drafted Slater at 12 and just kept going with JImmy lol 

If anyone has time, there's a pretty decent interview with Mike Silver on niner's nation that mainly focuses on the Trey lance thing. He does think that there will be another hedge on Lance next year, but doesn't think it will be Jimmy. The only example he gave was Matt Ryan. I never really considered Ryan, but obviously this is something that myself and others have mentioned before and why we have talked about signing guys like Daniel Jones or Baker next year. 

He also talked about what the draw was for the niners (intelligence, personality makeup), but that they haven't been won over by him how they expected to be. 

[GW21]

7 hours ago, Forge said:

 I liked Fields because I thought Shanny would help with his biggest problem: pocket awareness and play speed.  So much of this offense is already  point and click and because Fields was such a natural thrower of the football and could go anywhere on the field, I thought he would do well making the passing game more explosive while also giving the team that spontaneity in the pocket when things went down. 

This is what surprised me about Shanahan while talking about Trey after the draft. He seemingly was extremely impressed with his ability to make the right reads more than anything. It seems to me that you take the guy with the most natural talent throwing the ball and then coach him up on how to read a defense. I feel like Shanny had similar feelings on Cousins coming out in regards to his ability to make reads as well. 

Maybe I'm underestimating how difficult it is to teach these guys the mental aspect of the game, but you would think, with Kyle being a coach and touted as an offensive genius, that he'd have absolute confidence that he could take a ball of clay and mold it into a superstar - the clay being Fields in this scenario. 

I'm definitely not ready to give up on Lance and I love what I've heard about his work ethic and drive to get better: It's hard to bet against someone like that as long as he continues to put in the work. 

[J-ALL-DAY]

18 minutes ago, GW21 said:

This is what surprised me about Shanahan while talking about Trey after the draft. He seemingly was extremely impressed with his ability to make the right reads more than anything. It seems to me that you take the guy with the most natural talent throwing the ball and then coach him up on how to read a defense. I feel like Shanny had similar feelings on Cousins coming out in regards to his ability to make reads as well. 

Maybe I'm underestimating how difficult it is to teach these guys the mental aspect of the game, but you would think, with Kyle being a coach and touted as an offensive genius, that he'd have absolute confidence that he could take a ball of clay and mold it into a superstar - the clay being Fields in this scenario. 

I'm definitely not ready to give up on Lance and I love what I've heard about his work ethic and drive to get better: It's hard to bet against someone like that as long as he continues to put in the work. 

Getting a QB to process and go through their progressions quicker is not an easy task. We have seen some QBs tweak their mechanics and make big jumps but some will never be able to improve on their processing speed. 

Fields does not have a good supporting cast and has been pretty bad thus far in his career. Will that change if his WRs get better or he goes to another team? Maybe, but right now it is not looking great for him. Did have a good game against the Vikings though, so let's see if he can build on it. 

[Steve_DeBerg_Fan_420]

3 hours ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

Getting a QB to process and go through their progressions quicker is not an easy task. We have seen some QBs tweak their mechanics and make big jumps but some will never be able to improve on their processing speed. 

Fields does not have a good supporting cast and has been pretty bad thus far in his career. Will that change if his WRs get better or he goes to another team? Maybe, but right now it is not looking great for him. Did have a good game against the Vikings though, so let's see if he can build on it. 

My friend is a bear's fan, so I rewatch their games, and I don't think Fields has been bad.  He is just playing old school hero ball.  They only throw on 3rd and long, so he only makes the hardest throws.  They run very little motion or scheme design, everything seems very evenly spaced without a lot of bunch concept.

His weapons suck (outside of Mooney) His line is below average, and his defense is actually playing ok most of the time.   His coach values him, and is using the number of passing reps fields is getting to protect him, until they get him a line, weapons, and some kind of scheme.  It's Marty-ball 2021!

[biggie.]

Here's a hypothetical for y'all. Please note I don't know y'all's cap situation.

Let's say Brady decides to play for 2023 now that he's free from Gisele and the kids. He is a free agent again this offseason. How open would y'all would be for making the Boyhood Dream come true?

Also note that with Carolina about to enter firesale mode, CMC may be available for trade and his contract becomes more team friendly starting next season. Imagine an offense of Brady, CMC, Aiyuk, Kittle AND Deebo.

[Ftn49]

20 minutes ago, biggie. said:

Here's a hypothetical for y'all. Please note I don't know y'all's cap situation.

Let's say Brady decides to play for 2023 now that he's free from Gisele and the kids. He is a free agent again this offseason. How open would y'all would be for making the Boyhood Dream come true?

Also note that with Carolina about to enter firesale mode, CMC may be available for trade and his contract becomes more team friendly starting next season. Imagine an offense of Brady, CMC, Aiyuk, Kittle AND Deebo.

Before the whole divorce stuff started going around I would have (and did say) that I would have put any amount of money on Brady not playing next year. With the divorce stuff, I am not nearly so sure. That being said I just don't see how it works for the niners. Even if the cap explodes next off season we still have Bosa to sign to a new deal and I believe several guys cap numbers go up significantly. I'm not an expert on that though. Also at some point you have to see what you have with Trey. You spent 3 firsts on him, you need to find out. 

CMC, I dont think the draft compensation would be that big of a deal, except you already don't have a first rounder because of the Trey deal. Also have spent two thirds the previous two years on running backs. I wouldn't hate it just because of how good he is when he is right however we also have enough injury woes as it is.

[Forge]

56 minutes ago, biggie. said:

Here's a hypothetical for y'all. Please note I don't know y'all's cap situation.

Let's say Brady decides to play for 2023 now that he's free from Gisele and the kids. He is a free agent again this offseason. How open would y'all would be for making the Boyhood Dream come true?

Also note that with Carolina about to enter firesale mode, CMC may be available for trade and his contract becomes more team friendly starting next season. Imagine an offense of Brady, CMC, Aiyuk, Kittle AND Deebo.

Cap situation is not great short term, that's one of the reasons that they made the move according to them. 

This team is missing a right tackle next year, Bosa is scheduled for a big money deal (35m/yr?), Jimmie Ward needs a new deal or they have to find another safety, they definitely need a new center. Not sure if they will re-sign Eman. Guessing not, but they could. Then just a lot of depth and the team doesn't have a first round pick. They will likely have even fewer picks if they make a move this year. 

Both spotrac and OTC estimate about a 225M cap next year. I'd guess the team has about 25M in space next year give or take? I haven't really dug into it, but that should be in the ball park at least. Less than 35 people under contract. 

There are no easy, big money cuts either. The team would be looking down the barrel of some really unappetizing restructures on some of these guys. Kittle, AA, Trent...those are big base salary guys and we are not at a point in their careers where they should be restructured even further. 

 

[malak1]

On 10/13/2022 at 8:42 AM, J-ALL-DAY said:

Getting a QB to process and go through their progressions quicker is not an easy task. We have seen some QBs tweak their mechanics and make big jumps but some will never be able to improve on their processing speed. 

Fields does not have a good supporting cast and has been pretty bad thus far in his career. Will that change if his WRs get better or he goes to another team? Maybe, but right now it is not looking great for him. Did have a good game against the Vikings though, so let's see if he can build on it. 

I feel pretty confident that it will. 

[Herodreamer79]

I've just resigned myself to the fact that Jimmy Garoppolo is going to be here for the long haul. Kyle Shanahan can try getting rid of Jimmy, but seeing as the entire locker room goes into mourning whenever Jimmy doesn't play - I just don't see the point anymore. 

I'd love to have Lance next year. I'm still bullish that if he can stay healthy and stack some games together he will be one of the better QBs in the NFL.

But there's really no point to playing Lance if the team is just going to spend games moping and sulking around the football field like they did vs the Bears and the first half of the Seahawks game.  

Edited November 23, 2022 by Herodreamer79

[9erFreak77]

3 hours ago, Herodreamer79 said:

I've just resigned myself to the fact that Jimmy Garoppolo is going to be here for the long haul. Kyle Shanahan can try getting rid of Jimmy, but seeing as the entire locker room goes into mourning whenever Jimmy doesn't play - I just don't see the point anymore. 

I'd love to have Lance next year. I'm still bullish that if he can stay healthy and stack some games together he will be one of the better QBs in the NFL.

But there's really no point to playing Lance if the team is just going to spend games moping and sulking around the football field like they did vs the Bears and the first half of the Seahawks game.  

Not sure the 9ers can afford Bosa if they resign Jimmy…..I personally would rather have Bosa. The goal all along was to pay Lance on his rookie contract so they can resign players to play around him.

[Forge]

35 minutes ago, 9erFreak77 said:

Not sure the 9ers can afford Bosa if they resign Jimmy…..I personally would rather have Bosa. The goal all along was to pay Lance on his rookie contract so they can resign players to play around him.

Well, Bosa's cap hit will almost 100% decrease from where it's scheduled to be next year with an extension. His cap hit next year is almost 18 million, I would imagine with an extension that gets reduced closer to the 8-10 range. Long term it would probably be an issue, but for a year or two you could probably manage it with backloaded deals but I do think that this would be problematic given that he's going to hit the open market completely free and there are a lot of teams in much better financial positioning then us who have an interest in getting better at the position. I don't know how you compete with a team like Atlanta if they went after him (over 100M in space) or the Giants (over 50M). Indy will have over 30 million in space with rollover, most likely. 

That's going to be really hard. 

[Forge]

3 hours ago, Herodreamer79 said:

I've just resigned myself to the fact that Jimmy Garoppolo is going to be here for the long haul. Kyle Shanahan can try getting rid of Jimmy, but seeing as the entire locker room goes into mourning whenever Jimmy doesn't play - I just don't see the point anymore. 

I'd love to have Lance next year. I'm still bullish that if he can stay healthy and stack some games together he will be one of the better QBs in the NFL.

But there's really no point to playing Lance if the team is just going to spend games moping and sulking around the football field like they did vs the Bears and the first half of the Seahawks game.  

He could be, but I don't think this means anything right now. If he's once again dead weight in the playoffs, I don't know how you change your mind on him. We know he can win games in the regular season. He's done it every year he's been here. And though I do think that this is some of the best he has played in his career, outside of the Broncos (where he was awful), that's been a pretty weak defensive schedule for him to feast on. Carolina and the Rams are pretty much average and the rest of the schedule is mostly below average to bad. That's not me trying to knock him, it just is what it is. He can only play who is on his schedule and against those people he has been wonderful, but is he going to step up when the competition kicks up? I have no idea. 

[Forge]

Going to be fun if Purdy plays well to finish out the season. We are still underwater on trey's deal, but only by 2 million in a trade. It would be moveable in the right situation. 

I doubt that he would fetch a first or something in trade to make them pull the trigger, but could be interesting scenario.  Do they make it a true, QB competition?

And then there's Jimmy. If his value really does crater in the market (don't think it does too a point where the niners can afford him) maybe the team really does get comfortable with him.

The whole Trey Lance thing just really feels like bad vibes. Am I the only one who feels that way? Nothing substantive or anything... Nothing "real" ... Just bad feels. Time to take some time off Twitter 😂

[AustrianNiner]

4 hours ago, Forge said:

Going to be fun if Purdy plays well to finish out the season. We are still underwater on trey's deal, but only by 2 million in a trade. It would be moveable in the right situation. 

I doubt that he would fetch a first or something in trade to make them pull the trigger, but could be interesting scenario.  Do they make it a true, QB competition?

And then there's Jimmy. If his value really does crater in the market (don't think it does too a point where the niners can afford him) maybe the team really does get comfortable with him.

The whole Trey Lance thing just really feels like bad vibes. Am I the only one who feels that way? Nothing substantive or anything... Nothing "real" ... Just bad feels. Time to take some time off Twitter 😂

Yeah I totally get the bad vibe thing, feels like Purdy created more excitement in 3 quarters than Lance has in almost 2 years.