After an uncertain offseason at the QB position down in Santa Clara, as cited by our devoted Niners blogger Tavis Ino, GM John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan have ended the Trey Lance experiment after just two short seasons and decided to hand over the reins of their Super Bowl contending roster to the young gun Brock Purdy this past weekend.
The Niners famously traded up nine spots from number twelve to number three in order to select Lance, and gave up three first round picks to do so - one of the riskiest pre-draft moves in recent years across the NFL, reminiscent of the then Washington R's traded up to the number two slot in 2012 with three first round picks and a second rounder to boot just to move up four spots to select Robert Griffin III. Both moves ended up in similar fashion - with the coach with the last name Shanahan giving the once promising quarterback and supposed future of the franchise the boot in a significantly premature timeframe than they had both intended.
There has been some talk, at least locally, that this is a similar situation to Jamarcus Russell as far as bust comparison - for those who don't know, Russell is widely accepted as a top 3 bust in NFL history after being selected by the Oakland Raiders in 2007 at number 1 overall and barely making it through three purp-drank infested seasons - but I don't see it that way at all. The Niners are a much more professional franchise than the Raiders generally, especially compared to the '07 Raiders, and the reason the comparison doesn't work is because in that same draft class 259 picks later, they grabbed Brock out of Iowa State when he was flirting with becoming Mr. Irrelevant. That's the redemption here - Shanahan can always sit back on 'we drafted a quarterback to lead our franchise in 2021 - just turned out to be a different one than we had foreseen.' If that hadn't happened, they could go into this season with Trey and Darnold and still be in that grace period of mediocrity but making slight improvement year over year, but with Brock the expectations are now at an all-time high after taking them to the NFC title his first season.
But as TI points out... the Niners are notoriously weird about QB, and have been since Bill Walsh started running the show almost 45 years ago. If Brock has residual effects from his Tommy John surgery over the summer, this trade could end up looking idiotic - and for whatever reason this offseason, Shanahan has been all over Darnold as far as his performance and potential, saying things like : “I mean, Steve Young took a while to get going, and he’s one of the best quarterbacks of all time... I don’t like to compare anyone to Steve, cause of how good he is, but why can’t Sam be like that? He’s got that type of ability." (HT to our crosstown rivals the SF Chronicle for that quote)
So will the people see Darnold at some point this season? My bet would be yes. I hope Brock dominates and plays great all season, but Shanahan will want to play Darnold at some point... hence my comparison to the Patriots - for young QBs, you want to see that pressure on them to perform, not anoint them the starter just because of where they were drafted. So credit to the Niners in biting the bullet and saying 'We were wrong, but we are confident on our plan going forward.' - and it's tough to argue with back to back NFC title game appearances - even if Josh Johnson and a player without a UCL were leading for the last one. Love blogging the Niners, I bleed red and gold!
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