Kyle Shanahan claims Trey Lance was all on board with Jimmy Garoppolo sticking around the 49ers and that the sophomore signal-caller had "no problems with it at all."
Well, that might not be entirely true.
San Francisco's quarterback room will have a surprising look to it to start the 2022 NFL season. Lance will be atop the depth chart, as expected, but he'll be backed up by Garoppolo, the team's starter for the past four-plus campaigns who led the Niners to two NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl appearance. An offseason or preseason Garoppolo trade long felt inevitable, but the 30-year-old ended up restructuring his contract to stay in the Bay Area for the time being.
According to Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer, Lance wasn't initially elated about this unexpected outcome.
"There's too much on the line with the roster to worry about hurt feelings," Breer wrote in his latest Monday Morning Quarterback column. "And while I'd heard the news was, as you'd expect, a little complicated for Lance to take at first, he's a smart, mature kid who I believe can handle it. Truth is, if he couldn't, you might have bigger questions about where the Niners are at the position."
The 49ers obviously have a ton of confidence in Lance, but it only would be natural for the 22-year-old to feel like his seat is a little warm as long as Garoppolo is in San Francisco. In fact, NBC Sports' Peter King believes Garoppolo will replace Lance as the Niners' starter before the halfway point of the upcoming campaign.
