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Why Trey Lance Working Out with Patrick Mahomes is a Big Deal

You can see Lance is releasing the ball with his throwing arm fully extended, unlike in the past, which is a good thing.

Grant Cohn

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Don't write off Trey Lance just yet.

He currently is working out and throwing with Patrick Mahomes and his personal passing coach, Jeff Christensen. We know this because clips of their sessions have been posted to social media, which clearly shows Lance has been working on his throwing mechanics.

You can see Lance is releasing the ball with his throwing arm fully extended, unlike in the past, which is a good thing. He used to lock out his front leg prematurely, release the ball near his ear and then muscle it to his target, which led to inaccuracy and arm fatigue. His throwing motion was violent and required lots of effort. You could almost hear him grunt.

Now, he's learning to let his lower body do the work for him, which means his throwing motion suddenly seems more fluid and effortless, like Mahomes.

And Lance is learning all this from Mahomes' coach, who happened to mentor Jimmy Garoppolo in high school. Remember, Garoppolo initially was a pitcher and a middle linebacker until his Varsity football coach saw him throw a football. Then, the coach sent Garoppolo to Christensen, who taught Garoppolo his quick release. Christensen is the main reason Garoppolo is an NFL quarterback who has made more than $120 million in his career.

Now Christensen gets to work with Lance, who's much more gifted than Garoppolo ever was, and Lance seems fully bought in. As opposed to former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who infamously said he wasn't "huge on mechanics."

Lance certainly seems huge on mechanics, which is important. And he seems to have the right coach, which also is important. And he gets to work out with Mahomes, the best quarterback in the world, which couldn't hurt. So who knows, maybe Lance will experience the same dramatic growth that Jalen Hurts did last year.

We'll find out when OTAs begin in May.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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