CrimsonCrew wrote:thesack12 wrote:CrimsonCrew wrote:
He clearly outperformed Lance in the preseason. Camp reports were pretty consistent that Lance looked better, with lots of reports that once Darnold came off the first read, things almost always went poorly. Granted they both left a lot to be desired, at least in terms of completion numbers, etc. Lance was awful in the first preseason game, but he ended his preseason looking really solid. That's part of why the timing of the decision/announcement was so curious. If the preseason games mattered so much, why not let Lance have a third to show if he could build on the end of the second?
Additionally, I haven't watched the entire third preseason game yet, but Darnold looked quite shaky in the early drives, just falling apart on third down repeatedly. Wouldn't it have been nice to factor that game in before making the final call on these guys? Darnold had trouble sustaining drives in the preseason, which is one of the big complaints about Lance. He's not a methodical guy like Purdy who finds the weaknesses in the D and exploits them over and over to march down the field. He's more feast or famine. But the feasts with Lance already seemed better than with Darnold.
I don't know, you had Maiocco saying things along the lines Darnold is the most talented thrower of a ball the 49ers have ever had. Granted there is recency bias and hyperbole in that statement for sure. And of course there is a lot more to quarterbacking than throwing a football. Still, Maiocco has been covering the team since the late 90's, so a statement like that carries some weight. Certainly more than when Grant Cohn says "Trey Lance is the best QB prospect to come out since John Elway." Nevermind the fact that Grant was already on record saying they should draft Kyle Pitts at 3, then take Kellen Mond in the 3rd round. But that speaks more to Grant being a click baity biased buffoon more than anything and is off topic.
I didn't really read many glowing reports for Lance coming out during camp. I seem to recall that some reports were saying that at times Allen looked better than Lance.
I was on vacation, so I didn't watch any of the 3rd preseason game. So I can't comment on at all on that one. Still, the 9ers already had a pretty good idea on where Trey was at and know him intimately. Short of one of the most amazing preseason performances you've ever seen, I doubt whatever happened in that last game was going to tilt the decision much at all.
So I don't think the timing of the decision was odd. If anything it made sense to do it then, in that you do it prior to roster cutdown to try and spur trade interest in him. There is always a flurry of trades in that week or 2 prior to final cut downs.
Circling back to Darnold specifically, again I'll say I'm not a fan. He's been by and large bad so far in his career. Still he does posess a good amount of raw talent. Like Trey, Sam was also a 3rd overall draft pick. So there is a chance that Kyle can unlock Darnold. Its not like the 9ers kept a guy with zero short term or long term hope like a Nate Sudfeld. Compared to Trey, Darnold was the better short term option and could actually be a better long term option as well. Time will tell.
Darnold absolutely has arm talent. And if the first read is open, he's shown he's pretty good. He just sucks at almost everything else. Maybe Shanahan unlocks that, but I'm not holding my breath. We saw flashes of that indecisiveness when the first read wasn't there, and that's his biggest problem.
Again, Lance has some pretty similar questions. But unlike Darnold, Lance hasn't had 55 NFL starts to improve those things (and failed to do so).
Agree with everything you said here.
However, once the team decided that Trey wasn't the guy it became best for both Lance and the team to make a clean break and move forward without each other. Team gets an asset, while being able to focus on developing Purdy. Trey gets a fresh start and clean start, while having a lot of pressure taken off his shoulders.
We knew from jumpstreet that there was a relatively high possibility that the Lance pick wasn't going to work out. We came to that conclusion a lot earlier than any of us might have expected, but this outcome was always in play.