Kyle Shanahan Explains Why Trey Lance Had a Second Surgery on his Ankle

"You have to wait a while to see how the bone heals and then the break healed and it healed really well."

Trey Lance had a second surgery on his broken ankle last week to remove hardware that was causing irritation. On Friday, a reporter asked 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan about Lance's second surgery and his rehabilitation process. Here's what Shanahan said, courtesy of the 49ers' P.R. department.

Q: How has QB Trey Lance handled this season and particularly in light of how he was dealing with the irritation, recently and then having to have surgery?

SHANAHAN: “Trey's been great. I haven't had to go through it, but I've seen players do it and I can't tell you how hard it is for guys when they get hurt at the beginning of the year because of their expectations going in, how big of a part of the team they are, especially when it's the quarterback and then just like that their season's over and Trey's had to do the rehab hard. Once he started getting to travel with us and be a part of everything, I think it got a little bit easier, but it's always still a challenge for a guy. They want to be out there so bad. Trey's handled it great. As good as any injured player I've ever been around, he stays positive, he comes off the right way, but I know it's a challenge for him. Having to get the new surgery, that hasn't been a surprise for us. We've known that for a little bit and we also knew there was a high chance of that happening anyways. When he went into it, he broke a bone and the first thing was they had to fix that break and once they fixed the break, there was always worry that when you fix the break, will that rub the wrong way or something like that and they fixed the break great and then they knew they had to go in and fix that, which he's known for a while and they went and cleaned it up and I think that even made him feel better, so he could move on from that. And he's feeling great now with his rehab and I know he can't wait to get to this offseason.”

Q: Why did they wait until now to do the second surgery?

SHANAHAN: “Because you have to wait a while to see how the bone heals and then the break healed and it healed really well. I know everyone says all surgeries are successful and then why do you have to go back in. And this was an understanding on that. I'm not a medical guy so I think there's something we had to tie together to make sure the bone healed back together, but every time you do that, there's a high chance that it can rub on some tendons and just cause the irritation. They warned us about that before it happened and Trey told us about it right away and that was a good thing when they had to go back in there, you could see that the bone 100% healed and they just had to fix that band so it didn't irritate it anymore. And now he's right back to where he was.”