Will the 49ers Draft Trey Lance?

Lance went to North Dakota State, which produced Carson Wentz, who was an MVP candidate before he tore his ACL in 2017.

Grant Cohn | Apr 11, 2021

The 49ers certainly could draft Trey Lance with the No. 3 pick in the upcoming draft.

He arguably has the most potential of all the draft-eligible quarterbacks this year. He's only 20, and he's big and fast and has a cannon. Plus he played in a pro-style offense and made checks at the line of scrimmage, unlike most college quarterbacks. He's extremely smart. NFL.com compares him to Josh Allen, who finished second in the MVP voting last season.

Plus Lance went to North Dakota State, which produced Carson Wentz, who was an MVP candidate before he tore his ACL in 2017. And Lance might be an even better prospect than Wentz was when he entered the draft.

But Lance is green. He played only one season of college football and completed just 208 passes. He's the least experienced first-round quarterback ever, which means he either needs to sit the first two seasons or play right away so he can experience the growing pains and learn on the job.

The 49ers have a Super Bowl window -- they need to win now. They can't afford yet another losing season in 2021, because that would be Kyle Shanahan's fourth losing season in five years. He needs to a quarterback who helps him win next season. That's not Lance.

Lance should go to a team where he can sit behind a Hall of Fame quarterback for a couple years, or a rebuilding team with a new coaching staff.

A team like the Jets.

They recently hired Robert Saleh as their head coach, and they now run the 49ers offense. So if Lance fits the 49ers, he fits the Jets. And Saleh has no pressure to win right away. Meaning he can afford to draft Lance and play him next season.

Plus Jets general manager Joe Douglas was the Eagles vice president of player personnel in 2016 when they drafted Wentz. If Douglas liked Wentz enough to take him with the No. 2 pick, might Douglas like Lance enough to take him at the same spot?

Don't be surprised if the Jets take Lance and leave the 49ers to choose from Zach Wilson, Justin Fields and Mac Jones.

In that case, I would expect the 49ers to take Wilson. But who knows? The draft is three weeks away. Lots can happen between now and then.

Published Apr 11, 2021

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.