Trey Lance has cost $7m per start. Is there any hope of reclaiming a once hyped prospect? | NFL

TThe developmental journey for young NFL quarterbacks is brutal. They are pushed to the limit as franchises try to determine whether their investment is worth it, only to be thrown overboard if things go wrong. The league is eating its young. The path from potential starter to career save – or exit from the league – has never been shorter.

And this path has been accelerated almost on purpose. This is due in part to the rookie pay scale, which allows teams to move on from perceived duds sooner. This is also due to a change in evaluations. Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson broke the mold for everyone. They redefined what a starting quarterback could look like, the skills needed and the speed of development.

College offenses had become too open, too gimmicky, producing quarterbacks who had mastered college football but were unfamiliar with the mechanics of the NFL. So the league tried to solve the problem itself, selecting the rawest, most athletic prospects imaginable and then worrying about teaching them how to play quarterback later. He ignored the fact that Jackson and Allen (the latter raw, the former not) played in pro-style passing games in college, thereby reducing the learning curve when they entered the league. And trying to find the next Mahomes is like sifting through rec-ball leagues to find the next Victor Wembanyama.

There have been successes and failures. You know the names: Jordan Love, Justin Herbert, Zach Wilson, Anthony Richardson, Justin Fields, Trey Lance. All were chosen to fit the post-Mahomes vision of a modern quarterback.

Herbert and Love were successes, even if there are nuances. Herbert would be an ideal quarterback in any era – and was a victim of an unstable environment himself. Love was allowed to simmer in the background for three seasons in Green Bay, in support of Aaron Rodgers. The rest was just puffs. And all are candidates to join a new wave of success in the NFL: the recovery project. Three of the early MVP candidates this season – Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield and Daniel Jones – are former first-round picks who were passed over by the teams that drafted them, only to find success elsewhere thanks to a good system and professional experience.

Wilson is already potentially in his recovery chapter, backing up Tua Tagovailoa in Miami. Richardson’s early flashes with the Colts were tempered by injuries and an allergy to the specifics of the professional game. And then there’s Lance, perhaps the most convincing of all.

Lance was supposed to be the future of the San Francisco 49ers. He fit the mold: 6 feet 4 inches with a movable arm and wheels. The 49ers traded three first-round picks and one third-round pick to draft him. Teams don’t traditionally bet that kind of capital on a maybe; they do it when they think they’ve seen the next one.

But Lance has always been a mystery. He’s perhaps the purest expression of Josh Allen’s NFL hangover — the belief that tools and temperament could overcome inexperience. Lance had only started a little more than a season of games in college, winning a national championship in the lower tier of the FCS before leaving for the draft. He only threw 99 passes high school. In college, he played at North Dakota State, a well-oiled machine that runs a slimmed-down version of an NFL offense. In theory, that made him more ready than most project-type quarterbacks. In practice, this meant that it was barely tested.

Yet the college numbers sparkled: 2,947 passing yards, 30 touchdowns, just one interception; another 1,300 yards and 18 scores on the ground. The 49ers; the timing seemed good to me too. Jimmy Garoppolo disappeared from the shot. Drafting Lance wasn’t just a throw for the fences on an unproven prospect. It represented a change in style for Kyle Shanahan, the league’s most doctrinaire offensive coach. Shanahan had seen what was happening in Baltimore, Kansas City and Buffalo, and he wanted to keep up. He was looking for a quarterback who could marry the rhythmic roots of his offense with more vertical elements on the ground and in the air. Consider the Eagles heading to the 2023 Super Bowl with Jalen Hurts. Lance, despite his thin resume, fit the bill.

It didn’t work. Lance’s rookie flashes were promising, if uneven. By the second year, Shanahan handed him the keys. Two weeks later, he broke his ankle and finished his year. Brock Purdy came in his place. Shanahan launched the Lance experiment when it was clear that Purdy was more than a fun story and offered some of what the coach was looking for in Lance, but at a fraction of the price.

Being a “failure” in the draft isn’t just about that one player; this is the opportunity cost of choosing one player over all others. Redraft today, and the Niners could have taken Micah Parsons or Ja’Marr Chase with the third pick. If they had held on during the draft and not traded, they could have picked Mac Jones, Shanahan’s original preference in the 2021 draft and now, ironically, the 49ers’ starter while Purdy recovers from injury.

Two years after he was drafted, Lance was traded to Dallas for a fourth-round pick – a rounding error compared to the fortune the 49ers spent to get him. He barely played. When he did, he looked exhausted, unable to keep up with the speed of the league. In his final preseason appearance with the Cowboys, he threw five picks. Then, this past offseason, he signed a one-year, $6.2 million deal with the Chargers to back up Herbert and enrolled in Jim Harbaugh’s Quarterback Finishing School.

Lance has earned $36 million in his NFL career thus far, meaning he has cost his teams just over $7 million per start. But if there was ever a great place for Lance to develop, learn and become an asset rather than dead weight, it’s the Chargers. Sitting behind Herbert, there is no pressure on him to perform unless there is an injury. Harbaugh is one of the best quarterback developers of his generation. Harbaugh can X’s and O’s with anyone. But like O’Connell, he understands that development goes beyond the field. A year in Harbaugh’s kitchen could put Lance in polling position to be next man up this offseason.

The league’s mistake was not looking for quarterbacks who could make magic happen. It was the belief that post-snap magic could serve as a panacea. Mahomes, Allen and Jackson break down defenses not because they step out of line, but because they also master the intricacies of the position. They follow the script for 80% of the shots, then improvise on the remaining 20%. The NFL, seeing the fireworks, dismissed the foundation.

Lance is a telling case. The Niners looked at his upside and moved on when it became clear how long it would take for him to be even a competent starter, if he could ever reach that level. They cut a young player partly because of his struggles on the field, but also to clear the decks for Purdy.

The pendulum swings back. Looking for profits is exciting. But Darnold, Mayfield and Daniel Jones proved that experience is valuable – the presence of an adult in the room. They know how to get in and out of the group. They saw all the defenses. They know where the blitz is coming from. They can change protections, get everyone aligned and keep operations running smoothly. It’s at least work. But this season, they have been more than goalkeepers; they made the difference.

Finding the next Darnold or Mayfield is the latest trend. The Jets took their own initiative this year by signing Fields after he showed signs of life in Pittsburgh. He fit the mold as a former first-rounder who opted out early for a poorly managed franchise. But despite a solid outing against Cincinnati last week, Fields doesn’t appear to have the goods.

There will be more later. Richardson is the most likely. Bryce Young, maybe. Caleb Williams, if the Bears remain lost in the wild. Even Trevor Lawrence, if Jacksonville gets tired of waiting for his potential. Maybe it’s Mac Jones, who was sidelined in New England after a solid rookie season. Jones turned his career around with the Niners, filling in admirably for the injured Purdy. He’s shown enough this season that there will be interest on the trade market this offseason, although San Francisco won’t trade him away lightly.

Of his draft class, Lance became the forgotten man. Fields and Mac Jones had a chance to do it again. Lance is still waiting. His last meaningful snaps came this preseason, when he ran through the Hall of Fame game and threw two touchdowns. “He didn’t have a lot of playing experience,” Harbaugh said afterward. “We try to give him that, and he’s done it well.”

Lance is still only 25, younger than Saints rookies Tyler Shough, Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. “Twenty-five. In life, that’s the big part of the bat. For a quarterback, that’s the big part of the bat,” Harbaugh said of Lance.

The NFL has a way of crushing careers. Either you’re the guy or you’re not. But the truth is that careers are rarely linear. It took Alex Smith nearly a decade to find the right place. Geno Smith disappeared, then resurfaced as a quality starter in Seattle. Mayfield played the role of edge rusher on a scout team in Carolina before becoming the starter for the Bucs franchise.

Lance showed Harbaugh enough in the preseason to win the Chargers’ backup job. He has played a handful of cleanup snaps this season. If he’s needed long term, he could play a starting role elsewhere next year. Even a year on the bench, working with Harbaugh, provides more stability than he’s had since college. He’s struggled in the pros, but there’s an interesting player buried somewhere under the rubble.

Choosing him as their next rehab project this offseason would be a big win for someone.