Trey Lance–Brock Purdy QB Competition Could Heat Up This Offseason

The door is open for the 49ers’ first-rounder to take back the starting job from Mr. Irrelevant while both recover from injuries.

The 2022 season is over. The Chiefs are world champions. The offseason is underway, so let’s dive into your mail …

From Sports Tips 4 U (@ForNfltips): Purdy or Lance at QB for @49ers Week 1?

Sports Tips, if Brock Purdy hadn’t hurt his elbow, he’d absolutely be taking the first snap of OTAs in May, and Trey Lance would be fighting an uphill battle to get on the field in 2023. But that’s not where we are. Right now, Purdy will be cleared to play football, at best, in training camp, and that, to me, opens a great opportunity for Lance.

Here’s where the Niners were on Lance last summer—they knew that, in the moment, Jimmy Garoppolo was a better quarterback. But the idea was that, by the end of the year, with game reps coming through a firehose, Lance would eventually grow into being the better player and keep climbing from there. Obviously, he went down with a leg injury, so his progress is stuck where it was in Week 2, and Purdy got all those reps and proved himself, and right now is the better option.

Is Lance turning the tables while Purdy is recovering from surgery out of the question? No, it’s not.

Lance has missed most of his first two seasons due to injuries after the 49ers gave up three first-round picks to move up and draft him :: Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports

Lance is well liked and works his tail off. He’s not as skilled a runner as the Niners had hoped, but he’s a big, strong athlete. The question really is whether he can improve as a passer—he’s not that natural of a thrower of the ball. But Jalen Hurts wasn’t, either, and he developed, so it can happen. And if Lance, through his work with his personal coaches, comes back a different quarterback in the spring and lights up OTAs, then I think the Niners would be thrilled.

Remember, while the plan for now might be to go with Purdy, getting more out of the quarterback you traded three first-round picks for wouldn’t exactly be a bad result for any of the football decision-makers in Santa Clara. So stay tuned. This could get interesting.

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From KevinB (@kfb59261): If you were the Chiefs, would you give Orlando Brown the big contract he wants?

Kevin, to set this up, let’s take a look at Kansas City’s final offer to Brown last July.

On paper, the proposal was for $139 million over six years. But a balloon payment in the final year was included to bump up the overall average. Eliminate that year, and the deal averaged $19 million per year over five years. It carried $38 million in full guarantees and $52.25 million in injury guarantees. The full guarantee covered the first two years and reflected what two franchise tags, for 2022 and ’23, would cost the Chiefs.

Instead of taking that, Brown played on a $16.66 million tag, which sets him up for a $19.99 million tag this year. Kansas City could tag him a third time in 2024, but that would be at the quarterback number (not happening), meaning they’re going to have to put something in front of Brown good enough to convince him not to just take the $19.99 million this year, knowing he’s got an open highway to free agency in ’24.

What would that deal look like? It’d have to pay him at the top of the market and get him a chance to get paid again relatively soon. Maybe it’d look like the deal Laremy Tunsil did in Houston (a three-year, $66 million extension) three years ago, with inflation factored in.

The other option would be to let Brown test the market with the intention of re-signing him—like the Niners did with Trent Williams two years ago—a move that resulted in Williams doing the backloaded, six-year, $138 million deal the Chiefs’ offer to Brown was based off.

The obvious, larger question here is whether Brown is worth a deal like that, which is asking whether he’s at the level as Williams or Tunsil or David Bakhtiari. The truth? He’s not, but he gives the Chiefs stability at an enormously important position and has the flexibility down the line to flip to the right side (where he played in Baltimore) if he gets to the point when he can’t play left tackle anymore (even if that’s not his preference). So, yeah, I think if you’re the Chiefs, you swallow hard and pay him.

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From KetoBurrito2 (@KBurrito2): Any updates from the pit of Darkness?

Nope.

From Kyle (@dangahv): What qualities as a head coach does Gannon bring to the Cardinals?

Kyle, I think Jonathan Gannon is one of these coaches—and you hear this a lot—who could wind up being a better head coach than he was a coordinator. The 40-year-old is whip smart, has a swagger to him that helps him connect with players and has a really good understanding for what works and doesn’t organizationally, having spent time with the Falcons, Rams, Vikings, Colts and Eagles over 15 seasons in the NFL.

He was highly sought after as a coordinator candidate when the Eagles landed him in 2021, he made the Broncos think hard before they turned to Nathaniel Hackett last year (the Denver search committee loved his energy) and he was runner-up for the Texans’ job this year before landing in Arizona. And as for how he landed in Arizona, he was someone new Cardinals GM Monti Ossenfort identified after getting to know close to a dozen young coaches over the past year to try and figure who’d like to pair with if he landed a GM job.

So if Gannon were an offensive coach, he’d have been on a trajectory similar to Mike McDaniel, Matt LaFleur or his old staffmate Kevin Stefanski. That he’s not raises the question of who he’ll get to run that side of the ball—I think it’ll be Browns QBs coach Drew Petzing, whose background is in the Shanahan-Kubiak system—and what it’ll mean for Kyler Murray.

But I wouldn’t worry about Gannon not being that big of a name among NFL fans. Folks inside the league have been talking about him for a while.

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From lanchester royal (@LanchesterRoyal): Carr to the Jets or Rodgers? And what’s their level of interest in Tannehill?

Lanchester, I think, to answer your first question, whether the Jets will take a real swing at Derek Carr will likely come down to timing. If Aaron Rodgers’s decision drags close to the start of March, my guess would be the Jets will wait for him and probably miss out on Carr. If, on the other hand, Rodgers decides, say, early next week to stay in Green Bay, retire, or wants to go elsewhere but informs the Jets they won’t be his next team, then I could see Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh looking at Jimmy Garoppolo.

As for Ryan Tannehill, he’s another option, and another one the Jets have a connection to—as is the case with Rodgers (Nathaniel Hackett) and Garoppolo (Saleh), there’s a coach now in the building (Todd Downing) who has ties to Tannehill (Downing coached both him and Carr). Which means there’s a lot of institutional knowledge on the Jets’ quarterback options in the building that should be useful in the coming weeks.

And I think the Jets see that as an edge, with the availability of two of the three guys still a little up in the air, one based on what a player (Rodgers) decides to do and the other based on what a team (the Titans) decides to do, in that it allows New York to consider more than one option.

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From Pete Crespo (@Petedelaware1): Who will have the best start of the new coaches hired this cycle? Who has the biggest challenge ahead of them?

Pete, this should be relatively simple, since there are only five new head coaches.

To the first one—I’ll go a little off the board and say Frank Reich in Carolina. The Panthers finished last year 6–6, and there are potential cornerstones in Ickey Ekwonu, DJ Moore, Brian Burns, Jaycee Horn and Jeremy Chinn. There’s a physical identity to the team that Steve Wilks worked to cultivate in his 12-game run as interim coach. If you can find an answer at quarterback—and there are answers out there—that quarterback should benefit from working with Reich.

And the division looks very winnable (as opposed to what, say, Denver is facing).

As for the group that’s facing the biggest challenge, I’d say it’s probably Gannon in Arizona. Kyler Murray is coming off ACL surgery and will likely miss (at least) the whole offseason with a new system being installed. The roster has gotten old in a lot of places and already has taken two retirement hits, with JJ Watt and A.J. Green deciding to walk away. So where you can see the Panthers, Broncos, Colts and even Texans making a leap in Year 1, it looks like Gannon and Ossenfort have longer builds facing them.

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Richardson could be a prospect the Vikings would take a chance on late in the first round of the draft :: Doug Engle/USA TODAY NETWORK

From Nick Miller (@NicholasMMiller): Yearly conversation at this point but, what do you think Vikings will do with Kirk’s contract situation? It’s up in a year and not many people seem to be talking about it nationally.

Nick, I think Kirk Cousins will be the Vikings’ quarterback in 2023, and I think, certainly, they’d consider doing another one-year extension with him this offseason (they’d have $12.5 million in dead money to deal with after next year if they walked away). But I also believe that Cousins’s age (he’ll be 35 in Week 1) and contract situation make the Vikings a quiet contender to take a quarterback in April.

Minnesota’s been here before, and recently. Had Justin Fields slipped to where the team was initially picking in 2021 (No. 14), before dealing down and taking Christian Darrisaw with the 23rd pick, the now-Bears quarterback would’ve been a serious consideration. So if, say, Florida’s Anthony Richardson were to fall into their laps at 24, it’s easy for me to see the Vikings seeing a raw prospect who could develop for a year behind Cousins and wind up being a monster for them a few years down the line (physically, he’s off the charts).

So, yeah, I’d say there could be some moving parts there.

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From Greg Richards (@igglesnut): Fangio still not officially signed with Miami. Any chance he reneges on that reported verbal agreement and stays with Philly (or goes elsewhere)?

Greg, obviously, the ship sailed there, with the Dolphins having announced Vic Fangio’s arrival as defensive coordinator. But I’m sure the Eagles at least broached the idea with Fangio. And I think this is a good place to explain how the NFL’s effort to make the hiring process slower and more deliberate has wreaked havoc on some teams’ plans.

The Bengals had to wait well into February to know whether they’d have to replace their coordinators (Brian Callahan was a finalist in Indy, Lou Anarumo in Arizona) and quarterbacks coach (Dan Pitcher was offered the Buccaneers OC job). Likewise, the Rams had to watch their top two contingency plans (Ejiro Evero and Fangio) come off the board, not knowing whether DC Raheem Morris would wind up with the Colts.

And the Eagles now are feeling that hit. They should be fine on offense, with two really good options to replace Shane Steichen (who got the Colts job) with Brian Johnson and Kevin Patullo (whoever doesn’t get it could be off to Carolina or Indy). On defense, though, the two I think would’ve been their top names (Fangio and Jerod Mayo) to replace Gannon were off the board well before they lost Gannon. So, now, they’ll probably turn to Dennard Wilson, their defensive pass-game coordinator.

Now, these sorts of issues for teams and coaches aren’t the end of the world. But they certainly qualify as unintended consequences of the changing hiring landscape.

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From AK (@TheDashedLine): If Washington hires Bieniemy as the OC, is it possible that the hire is made with the input of the new ownership group with the possibility that Bieniemy replaces Rivera as HC?

From Zack Eisen (@zackeisen21): Bieniemy ever gonna get a head coaching job? And has anyone with his resume ever been passed over this many times?

AK, to answer your question first, the answer is no. The Commanders aren’t that far down the line on the sale, so I can’t see where a potential ownership group would be that deep into the weeds of the football operation.

And Zack, I think Bieniemy is qualified, and it’s disappointing this has played out this way. But it’s happened before. Mike Zimmer waited more than a decade before his finally got his shot with the Vikings. Pete Carmichael was Sean Payton’s offensive coordinator for 12 years and won a Super Bowl in that role, and he was with Drew Brees for 19 of the quarterback’s 20 seasons (including four in San Diego) and never got his shot. But even with that accounted for, it’s not hard to see why folks think Bieniemy’s gotten a raw deal.

We’ve all been through the reasons. There were the incidents when he was younger (though he’s hardly the first coach to have skeletons in his closet), there’s the fact that Andy Reid’s the play-caller in Kansas City, and there are questions about how he’s interviewed. And I think at this point getting passed over has almost become a problem within itself—teams could be asking, if these other teams passed on him … does he just not have it? Why should it be us?

Regardless, I’d like to see Bieniemy get a shot, so we can see where he takes it. I wish the NFL’s hiring issues wouldn’t be so centered on him, because I don’t think that’s helping him, either. And maybe going to Washington will help change the overall narrative. Going there, of course, would come with a lot of risk. But I can see why Bieniemy would think, at this point, it’s time to take that kind of risk, after the way the past five years have gone.