They then paid him about $28 million to make four starts in two seasons before trading him to Dallas for a fourth-round pick after he wasn’t deemed good enough to beat out former draft bust Sam Darnold for the backup quarterback job on the 49ers.
The blunder didn’t come without a cost. Had the 49ers chosen to stand pat with oft-injured Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback in 2021 and drafted a key contributor with their No. 12 pick — All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons ended up going in that spot — they might have bested the Rams in the NFC title game that season.
The 49ers drafted Lance even though he had started only 17 games at FCS-level North Dakota State after playing just once in the pandemic-altered 2020 season. “We knew he wasn’t fully ready in every aspect, but we knew he had a skill set that we could put some stuff together to give him the chance to compete and grow with a good team as he developed as a full quarterback,” Shanahan said. “He got hurt in the first quarter of the second game, which kind of set that back.”