The 49ers can’t seem to avoid any kind of quarterback controversy.
San Francisco has been the talk of the NFL world this week, and for reasons beyond any action on the field. Coach Kyle Shanahan confirmed Sam Darnold won the backup quarterback job over Trey Lance on Wednesday, causing league-wide uproar ever since.
Here’s a glimpse of how the national media has reacted to the events that unfolded in Santa Clara this week.
Fox Sports 1’s Nick Wright was extremely critical of the 49ers organization in how they handled the Lance situation.
“The process for the San Francisco 49ers over the last three years regarding Trey Lance has been the most ridiculous, unprofessional, disorganized I’ve ever seen in pro sports,” Wright said Wednesday on “The Herd.”
The 49ers gave up three first-round picks and a third-rounder to the Miami Dolphins to move up to the No. 3 spot in the 2021 NFL Draft to select Lance.
Lance’s first season as the official starter was wiped away following a season-ending ankle injury in Week 2 of the 2022 season, and he had to watch from the sidelines as Jimmy Garoppolo and then eventually Brock Purdy took over and succeeded him. Two years after franchise player expectations, Lance has fallen to third-string quarterback.
ESPN’s Louis Riddick believes someone in the 49ers organization should be held accountable for the costly trade.
“That’s enough said right there. Enough said,” Riddick said on ESPN after breaking down the draft compensation that San Francisco surrendered to acquire Lance. “Now, that same guy is now your third quarterback, and now has lost his job to Mr. Irrelevant, lost his job to another former first-round pick that has now supplanted him as the number two quarterback, who, if you remember, we talked about in the offseason, as someone there had told me, ‘Don’t be surprised if Sam Darnold flourishes in this offense.’
“That’s a huge miss, especially considering this—remember before the ’21 draft, when there was a lot of speculation about who it was exactly that Kyle Shanahan was moving up from 12 to three to get? Remember all the talk about it being Mac Jones and then switching to Trey Lance? And then there was a lot of speculation about, internally, there was disagreement about who the people wanted, who exactly wanted who, who the coaches wanted versus who the scouting department wanted.
“Well, this right now is going to be something that’s going to be dissected internally in San Francisco because you cannot do that,” Riddick continued. “I don’t care what Brock Purdy has returned to you. You can’t do that and not have some people have to answer for that.”
ESPN NFL analyst Ryan Clark also believes San Francisco should receive more criticism for the trade, saying the 49ers made a “bad decision” in drafting Lance.
