NFL analyst paints shockingly bad picture of Trey Lance, 49ers

Emmanuel Acho does not believe Trey Lance will be a success with the San Francisco 49ers.

Poised to hand over the reins to the offense to Trey Lance, FS1’s Emmanuel Acho believes the San Francisco 49ers made a GOB Bluth huge mistake in drafting the North Dakota State product.

Acho’s harsh criticism of Lance came from an exercise he and his Speak For Yourself co-host Marcellus Wiley did on grading the NFL‘s second-year quarterbacks of note. He gave Lance a terrible grade of a 2-out-of-10. Acho gave way better grades on all four other first-round quarterbacks taken: Trevor Lawrence (6), Zach Wilson (7), Justin Fields (5) and Mac Jones (9).

Here is what he said about the 49ers’ second-year quarterback and former No. 3 overall selection.

"“I’m being nice with this one. From everything I’ve heard from people within the locker room, and outside the locker room, he just ain’t it. He just ain’t got it,” said Acho. “There’s a reason they call him ‘one play Trey’ and a reason he only started one game. The Niners chose to play Jimmy Garoppolo with a broken thumb over their top-three first-round pick. There’s a reason for that.”"

Wiley did not give Lance an exemplary grade either (5), but was far less critical of the 49ers quarterback than his SFY colleague. While he gave Lawrence (8), Fields (7) and Jones (9) high grades, he dinged Wilson with his overall evaluation of the New York Jets signal-caller (3). Lawrence, Wilson and Lance went 1-2-3 in the 2021 NFL Draft. Fields and Jones went later.

Here is what Wiley had to say about Lance after hearing Acho’s incredibly harsh grade of him.

"“I’ve heard exactly what you’ve heard, but there’s also a part of me that’s like ‘yo, this dude is a talent,'” said Wiley. “Everyone also talks about how his ceiling is so high, and maybe the 49ers’ circumstance is why Trey Lance hasn’t been on the field in full. If we’re on a team that has Super Bowl aspirations, we don’t have time to slow down. I don’t know if they trusted the rookie to do that. He’s had a season to go through, and offseason to come back, I think they think this is the guy for them. But I don’t know what to think.”"

With an average grade of 3.5, did the 49ers make a big mistake in trading up to draft Lance?

Emmanuel Acho says Trey Lance is just not it for the San Francisco 49ers

Anytime you preface something with “I’m being nice with this one”, you are going full-blown “with all due respect” immediately before completely disrespecting the individual in question. “One Play Trey” is totally damning, but when 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said he felt good about “Five Guys around 3,” we should believe him. He knows his quarterbacks better than he knows burgers.

Admittedly, Lance was more of a quarterback project than a quarterback prospect. He played essentially one season of college football at FCS powerhouse North Dakota State. Lance may have won the Walter Payton as a redshirt freshman in Fargo, but he has played only a handful of games since 2019. Nearly all of this is out of his control, but a lack of playing time is certainly concerning.

Regardless, 2022 is the most important year of Lance’s football-playing career. If he backs up Jimmy Garoppolo again, this will look worse than the Green Bay Packers trading up to draft Jordan Love. Should Lance play up to his North Dakota State Bison potential, he could be the Bay Area’s version of Patrick Mahomes and then assert himself as the greatest Bison quarterback of all time.

Lance could be the real deal, but there is a possibility the 49ers selected the worst quarterback.