Trey Lance could be taking the next step forward in his development this year. After the first few years of his career being filled with turmoil, this could genuinely be his make-or-break season. And by the looks of it, he’s not taking any chances with how it might play out. It has been reported that Lance has already taken a “substantial” jump after training with Patrick Mahomes.
Lance was able to hire Jeff Christensen in the offseason to help mentor him. Christensen is a private quarterbacks coach that also works alongside Mahomes, the phenomenal Kansas City Chiefs quarterback. Because these two share the same private coach, it’s led to them working together on occasion lately. Lance has been able to sit back and watch Mahomes operate whenever they work out, and according to Christensen, that’s been wildly helpful. He said, “I said, watch this. Watch what he does here. It was something I was telling him to do that he wasn’t quite doing. And then he saw Patrick apply it perfectly. And I think that visual buy-in, that mental buy-in, helped him past that mental hump.”
Christensen didn’t stop glowing about Lance when speaking about him. He also told reporters that he just keeps on getting better as the workouts continue. In particular, he talked about the past week, which said that he’s been substantially improving over. He didn’t talk about the specific areas that he’s helped Trey improve, but rather that it was an overall jump from where he started this work off.
Trey Lance Has Had A Rough Run
To further talk about Lance’s career, it’s been a bit unfair. He joined behind Jimmy Garoppolo and San Francisco 49ers team that was immediately ready to contend for a Super Bowl. This caused him to ride the bench for his rookie year. Then Garoppolo wasn’t expected to return, and finally gift Lance the steering wheel.
After a game and a half, Lance suffered a season ending injury. Garoppolo took the job back, then when he was injured, they saw Mr. Irrelevant Brock Purdy shine in the starting role. Garoppolo is off the roster, but the team is very interested to see what Purdy can do as well. These two will battle it out, and if Lance loses this competition in the offseason, a trade might be looming from San Francisco.
The biggest area that Lance struggled in during the minimal time he’s spent on the football field was his completion percentage. Over eight NFL contests, Lance completed just 54.9 percent of his passes. Christensen, his new trainer, has coached hundreds of passers in this category and helps them connect with like-minded individuals to get better.
Christensen wrapped up his talk by saying, “With his play-calling and this kid’s upside and ability, I think he can be incredible.” This was in response to the reporter asking about the combination of his development and the play calling of head coach Kyle Shannahan, and how he always puts his players in a position to succeed. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see on Lance.