Labeling Trey Lance a Bust Isn’t Serious Commentary

On social media, the currency is attention and engagement. Over time, a blend of hot-take culture and troll culture has become a common method to drive engagement.

In today's sports culture, people are incentivized to communicate in absolutes. The First Take era of sports commentary ushered in an ecosystem where strong takes are rewarded, and playing the 50 gets you ignored. Criticism of a player is keeping it real. Yelling about a player is being passionate. Remaining stubborn about a player is having conviction. In a sports media landscape of Stephen A Smith, Skip Bayless, and Dave Portnoy, being loud and combative is often more important than being right. 

On social media, the currency is attention and engagement. Over time, a blend of hot take culture and troll culture has become a common method to drive engagement. Caught up in it all is the athlete. 

Trey Lance is a 22 year old quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. He was drafted in 2021 with the third pick. Lance has started only four games as a pro, and his future success or failure is still very much an unknown. But that hasn’t stopped a percentage of the fan base from labeling him a flat-out bust. 

There are fair and legitimate critiques of Lance as a starting quarterback and of his game. For example, someone may point to his lack of experience. Others might argue he struggles with accuracy. He needs to be more decisive and trust his eyes at times. There are absolutely rational and reasonable concerns one could have. Those questions will persist until Lance dispels them on the field. 

There’s another group of people though, who spew hyperbolic nonsense. You’ll see “Lance is a bust” or “Lance is trash”. Complete shock value grifters. Trolls. Not serious opinion or commentary. These individuals have decided they either don’t like Lance, or don’t like the people who like Lance. Their rooting interest is simply hoping Lance fails so they can make noise online. You also have some Lance hate that almost seems personal. A level of animosity that isn’t normal in sports dialogue. In which case speaks more of the individual than it does of Lance. 

My point isn’t that Lance will be good. We haven’t seen enough of him to know much at all. It’s entirely plausible he will not pan out. The Lance haters have a historical, statistical chance at being right. A high percentage of first round quarterbacks don’t pan out. And if you throw enough garbage takes at the wall, you’ll end up getting one to stick. But that doesn’t change the fact that their process is in bad faith. 

Normally you don’t give a troll any oxygen, but there is an important distinction to make: there are people who voice doubt about Lance, but do it in a serious, thoughtful manner. You will have some people who think Brock Purdy is better. But in no means do they look to tear down Lance. It’s important for fans and media to decipher between serious, data and film driven sports commentary and player hater, hot take peddling, troll merchants. 

Lance is young and extremely gifted both physically and mentally. He will have the opportunity to take the starting job and run with it. The best case scenario for the 49ers is that Lance lives up to his great potential and is the franchise quarterback for the next decade. Writing him off right now would be gross malpractice.