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Will the 49ers Bring Back Trey Lance this Offseason?

Hear me out.

Grant Cohn

Jan 5, 2025; Arlington, Texas, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Trey Lance (19) throws a pass against the Washington Commanders during the first quarter at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Arlington, Texas, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Trey Lance (19) throws a pass against the Washington Commanders during the first quarter at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-Imagn Images / Tim Heitman-Imagn Images
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Hear me out.

Trey Lance will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason and the 49ers need a backup quarterback. In fact, they need two, because both Brandon Allen and Joshua Dobbs are free agents, too.

Should the 49ers bring back Lance?

Trading for Lance four years ago was one of the worst moves in NFL history. The 49ers sent three first-round picks plus a third-rounder to the Miami Dolphins for the right to draft Lance, arguably the biggest project quarterback to get drafted in the top 3.

You know what happened next. Lance got injured after just four starts, Brock Purdy took his job and the 49ers traded Lance to the Cowboys for a fourth-round pick. That seemed to be Lance's final chapter with the 49ers.

But he's still just 24 -- he's six months younger than Purdy. And while Lance might not be a starting-caliber quarterback, he could be an intriguing backup in a league that has become dominated by dual-threat QBs. Plus he knows the 49ers system, their coaching staff and their players. He already has friends on the team.

But I'm guessing this reunion won't happen. The 49ers probably would see it as a distraction that would draw too much attention, and Lance might see it as a step back in his career. He might prefer to go to a team that gives him a chance to compete or a team that has a vision for him and hasn't given up on him once already.

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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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