SANTA CLARA -- Few teams have ever invested as much capital into acquiring as the San Francisco 49ers did when they traded three first-round picks to draft Trey Lance.
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."Purdy, taken with the last draft pick in 2022, came on late in the season and won his first seven starts to take over the starting role headed into this season.