New England Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson
Football is a team sport, but I became a New England Patriots fan in 2021 because of one player. When the Patriots drafted Alabama quarterback Mac Jones, they also acquired me as a fan: Roll Tide.
Jones had led the Crimson Tide to an undefeated season and the National Championship after spending three years on the bench behind Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa, stepping in after Tua suffered a season-ending injury late in 2019. That Jones would go in the first round of the 2021 draft, and would be picked by New England — a potential successor to the great Tom Brady — caught my interest. I hadn’t paid much attention to the NFL in many years, but how could I resist the drama of an Alabama player trying to fill the enormous Hall of Fame shoes of Brady? When Mac beat out Cam Newton for the starting QB job in preseason, I was psyched. Mac led the Patriots to the playoffs as a rookie, finished second in Rookie of the Year voting, and seemed destined for future greatness.
The 2022 season . . . Well, it was a nightmare that every Patriots fan would like to forget. Now we’re moving forward after the season-opening defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles, and New England will be playing host to the Miami Dolphins in the prime time feature game. Almost all the experts are predicting a Miami victory, after Tua put up 466 yards last week in a 36-34 victory over the Chargers. About the only commentator who thinks the Patriots can win this game is Greg Bedard, who believes (a) Bill Belichick’s defense can stop Tagovailoa and the Miami offense, and (b) New England will be able to run the ball effectively.
Felt like it was trending in a positive direction when the #Patriots didn’t elevate any offensive linemen from the practice squad.
Miami gave up 233 rushing yards and three TDs last week. If it’s Strange-Andrews-Onwneu in the IOL, could be a big day for Rhamondre and Zeke. https://t.co/uvweLZtJgx
The offensive line is the big question mark for the Patriots. The final game day injury report isn’t available yet, but two New England linemen — veteran left tackle Trent Brown and guard/tackle Sidy Sow — were reported to be in concussion protocols earlier this week. Starting right guard Michael Onwenu has been working his way back from an injury, second-year left guard Cole Strange missed last week’s game with an ankle injury, and then it was reported that veteran center David Andrews was “limited” in practice with some sort of hamstring injury. As Evan Lazar says, if it turns out that Onwenu, Strange and Andrews are all good to go tonight, maybe there’s hope that the New England tag team of running backs, Rhamondre Stevenson and Ezekiel Elliott, will have a big game, “pounding the rock” downfield, so that Mac doesn’t have to win the game solely by his passing prowess. And because a victory for the Patriots would be an upset, against an AFC East division rival, this could change the entire conversation around the team’s prospects in the 2023 season.
Most of my readers don’t care about the NFL, but following the Patriots is therapeutic for me, a needed distraction from the general misery of politics in the Biden era. It’s about my mental health, really.
Meanwhile, as you are reading this, I’m actually on the road, driving my youngest daughter to the airport, as she will be departing today to spend the next year in a distant foreign country. Hopefully, I’ll be back in time for kickoff tonight, and in the meantime, I urge readers to remember the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:
Excuse me for returning so soon to the NFL theme, but what happened on Monday Night Football is dominating ESPN coverage, and also will have a direct impact on the fortunes of the New England Patriots.
The Aaron Rodgers Era in New York lasted exactly four plays, as he limped off the field after getting sacked with 11:40 left in the first quarter. Subsequently, it was reported that Rodgers — the 39-year-old former Green Bay Packer quarterback who had been embraced by long-suffering Jets fans as the messiah who would deliver them from years of irrelevance — had suffered a torn Achilles tendon, an injury that almost certainly ends his 2023 season. All the preseason talk about the Jets potentially becoming the best team in the AFC East ended in sad fashion, even though New York somehow managed to win the game in overtime when rookie Xavier Gipson, an undrafted free agent from Stephen F. Austin University, returned a punt 65 yards for a touchdown.
And as a New England Patriots fan, I can only say, “Perfect.”
First of all, the arrival of Rodgers in New York, by making the Jets competitive, threatened to make the Patriots the fourth-best team in the division, which in the pass three years has been dominated by Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills, with Tua Tagovailoa and the Miami Dolphins a rising challenge. But with Rodgers now likely out for the season, the Jets will have Zach Wilson at quarterback — and he’s been a disaster ever since New York wasted their No. 2 draft pick on him in 2021.
Secondly, however, it’s a great boon for the Patriots that the Bills lost Monday’s game — a division loss, which could prove to be important in any tiebreaker scenario for a playoff spot — and the way Allen played certainly made Buffalo look vulnerable as defending AFC East champions. Allen threw three interceptions and also fumbled, completing 29 of 41 passes for 236 yards, with a rating of 62.7. Compare that to the numbers Mac Jones put up Sunday against the Eagles — completing 35 of 54 passes for 316 yards, with a rating of 89.2 — and you have to think there is at least hope that New England could return to their erstwhile status as the dominant team in the NFC East.
For now, the Jets sit atop the division standings, the division win over the Bills giving them the first tiebreaker against the Dolphins, with the Bills and Patriots, now both 0-1, bringing up the rear. That’s likely to change next week: Buffalo hosts the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday — you’ve got to figure Allen and the Bills will play much better for the home crowd, going to 1-1 — while the Jets, now with the hapless Wilson as their starting QB, play at Dallas. Considering that the Cowboys opened their season by stomping the Giants 40-0, I’m going to bet the Jets will be 1-1 after their game Sunday. And in the prime time Sunday Night Football game, the Patriots will host the Dolphins, who beat the Chargers in a 36-34 shootout this past weekend. So either the Patriots win Sunday night, in which case every AFC East team is likely to have a 1-1 record, or Miami wins, in which case the Dolphins are likely to be alone atop the division at 2-0, while the Patriots sink into fourth place at 0-2.
Anyway, I just had to get this football stuff out of my system, and will shortly return to the (ultimately boring) topic of politics.
The New England Patriots lost their season-opener to the Philadelphia Eagles, 25-20, and this result was in many ways discouraging. As in several close games over the psst couple of years, the Patriots made stupid mistakes and failed in crucial situations late in the game. A loss is a loss, and any effort to find a “moral victory” in Sunday’s result does not change the fact that New England is now 0-1 and lost on their home field.
However (and you knew this was coming), as a Patriots fan, I’m actually encouraged by the team’s first regular-season performance. Several questions that had arisen about the team were answered Sunday in a manner that inspires hope that New England could make a run at the playoffs this year. Other observers shared that opinion, including Patriot Nation Podcast co-host Pat Lane, whose takeaways from the Philly game included these points:
1. The New England defense is legit . . .
2. Mac Jones looks fine …
and
6. The offensive line holds up surprisingly well . . .
Exactly so. Taking these in reverse order, New England fans have spent the past six months fretting about the offensive line, especially the question of who would play right tackle, opposite of veteran Trent Brown at left tackle (who has been widely criticized himself). The Patriots didn’t draft a tackle, instead adding three guards in the later rounds of the draft, and then acquiring some “journeyman” type tackles through trades and free agency. The thing you have to understand about the NFL is that top-quality offensive tackles are highly valued, so that it’s hard to acquire one except by drafting them in the first or second round.
My brother angered me during Sunday’s game when he remarked that Bill Belichick has assembled a “Gucci defense and a Dollar General offense.” After the game, however, I laughed at the uncanny accuracy of this description. A former defensive back who made his bones as a coach when he was defensive coordinator for the New York Giants under Bill Parcells, Belichick has always prioritized defense, an attitude that didn’t really hurt the Patriots’ chances when they had the miracle worker Tom Brady at quarterback. But that preference for drafting defensive players in the early rounds (and refusing to pay top dollar for free-agent talent on offense) has created problems for New England in the post-Brady years.
Rather than go into a detailed discussion of this — which I’m sure most of my readers don’t care about — the No. 1 question I had going into Sunday’s game was whether the Patriots’ makeshift assemblage of offensive linemen would be able to protect Jones, or whether he’d spend the day running for his life or getting pounded into the turf by Philadelphia’s phenomenal pass rushers. New England started two rookies, Atonio Mafi and Sidy Sow, at left and right guard, because the regular starting guards (Cole Strange and Michael Onwenu) were both injured. Calvin Anderson (acquired through free agency from the Broncos) got the start at right tackle, with veteran center David Andrews anchoring the resulting patchwork line and . . .
They weren’t really bad at all. Mac Jones came under pressure many times, but he was only sacked twice. Much credit for that no doubt belongs to New England’s offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien, who schemed up a lot of plays where Jones could make quick-release passes before the Eagles defense could get to him. And that was the defense, mind you, that got Philadelphia all the way to the Super Bowl last season.
Mac Jones should've been running for his life. Instead, the Patriots o-line surpassed expectations
After an early interception — tipped off the hands of receiver Kendrick Bourne into the hands of Eagles cornerback Darius Slay, who returned it for a touchdown — Jones was excellent at quarterback, completing 35 of 54 passing attempts (64.8%) for 316 yards and three TDs. He also ran for a first down during a touchdown drive late in the first half, and also scrambled for 7 yards (and got out of bounds to stop the clock) during the fourth-quarter drive that ended when rookie wide receiver Kayshon Boutte failed to get both feet inbounds on a catch that otherwise would have given the Patriots a first-and-goal at the Philadelphia 8-yard-line.
While the pessimist would point out that Jones wasn’t quite good enough to win the game for New England, he can’t really be blamed for the loss, either. And, as I say, they were playing against the defending NFC champions, with two rookies starting on the offensive line. For Mac to have done as well as he did under such circumstances, certainly Patriots fans can hope to see a highly competitive offense going forward, especially once the veteran guards get healthy and return to the lineup.
Finally, yes, the Patriots defense is legit. They were able to hold Philly’s dual-threat QB Jalen Hurts to just 170 yards passing and 37 yards running, limiting the Eagles to barely 250 yards total offense, and making several big plays, including a hard-hitting tackle by safety Jabrill Peppers that forced a fumble, and a sack by rookie cornerback Christian Gonzales.
Going into the season opener, even with home-field advantage, I think I was not alone in fearing that the Patriots would get blown out by the Eagles, and when New England quickly fell behind 16-0, it was heartbreaking, but not entirely unexpected. To see the Patriots claw their way back into contention, with two TD drives before halftime, gave me a lot of hope, and for New England to be playing with a chance to win in the final seconds was better than most sober observed had expected.
All in all, I think Patriots fans can be proud of how their team played Sunday, which you can’t say for fans of the Bengals (who lost 24-3 to the rival Browns), the Steelers (who got stomped 30-7 by the 49ers), the Bears (who were defeated 38-20 by the Packers) or the Giants, who were humiliated 40-0 in prime time Sunday night. Losing a close game to the Eagles was discouraging, but it wasn’t embarrassing — hang your head in shame, Giants fans — and I feel good about the rest of the season.
Labor Day is fading in the rearview mirror. The leaves on the poplar tree down at the corner are already turning yellow, and the cornfields nearby have turned from green to gold, which can only mean . . .
FOOTBALL TIME! Nearly 30 weeks have elapsed since Kansas City Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl, and NFL fans have had to make do with draft talk, free agency speculation, trades and other roster moves, spring OTAs, mandatory minicamp, training camp, preseason exhibitions, but . . . No real football has been played for the past 207 days, and we are desperately craving tonight’s season kickoff between the Chiefs and the Detroit Lions.
Every commentator and analyst expects Kansas City to win this one, and who can argue? Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes is a wizard, capable of eluding rushers, escaping the blitz, completing passes while throwing underhanded with a linebacker breathing down his neck. Nobody wants to bet against Mahomes, but there is just a wee bit of doubt about this game because (a) KC’s star defensive tackle Chris Jones has been holding out over a contract dispute, and (b) the Chiefs’ All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce suffered a knee injury in practice Tuesday.
Here’s a fact: Mahomes has never won an NFL game without Kelce in the lineup. Having the reliable tight end as a sure-thing pass-catcher on crucial third down plays has been an ace-in-the-hole that Mahomes has been able to rely on ever since he became the starter in Kansas City in 2018. The Chiefs say Kelce may be able to play tonight despite the injury — a bone bruise, it’s reported — but if he’s not able to make it, the absence could throw Mahomes off his game just enough to give the Detroit Lions a chance to upset the defending Super Bowl champions.
The Colorado Buffaloes were three-touchdown underdogs Saturday, playing on the road against a team ranked in the Top 20.
Last year, Texas Christian University went 13-2, winning the Big 12 championship, then defeated Michigan in the semifinals of the national championship playoffs before losing the title game to Georgia. Meanwhile, Colorado was 1-11 in the 2022 season. It was a sign of desperation in Colorado when they hired Deion Sanders — the former NFL star defensive back known as “Prime Time” — away from an HBCU (historically black colleges and universities) school, Jackson State in Mississippi. After getting hired, Sanders proceeded to clean house in Boulder, chasing off most of the team’s scholarship players, and bringing in several of his former Jackson State players, including two of his sons, one of whom was installed as the Buffaloes’ starting quarterback.
Well, guess what? Colorado won, 45-42, in a nationally televised thriller in which Shedeur Sanders threw for a school-record 510 yards. It wasn’t just the yardage, either — Shedeur completed 81% of his passes (38-for-47) for four touchdowns, and didn’t throw a single interception. Meanwhile, another Jackson State transfer, Travis Hunter, caught 11 passes for 119 yards as a wide receiver and — AND! — also played cornerback on defense, making three tackles, intercepting one pass and breaking up two others. Hunter played 129 snaps, an iron man performance unheard of in modern college football.
Also, Colorado freshman running back Dylan Edwards rushed for 24 yards on six carries, and caught six passes for 135 yards, including a stunning 75-yard touchdown reception.
The Colorado hype train is now rolling downhill with a full head of steam, with people talking about Travis Hunter and/or Shedeur Sanders for the Heisman Trophy and, wondering if the Buffaloes might actually make it to the national championship — a worst-to-first Cinderella story that the sports media can’t resist. Is this hype warranted? I don’t know, but when you throw for 500+ yards in your season-opener against a Top 20 team — on the road! — it’s hard to see any ceiling to how high the hopes should be in Colorado this season. As for all those doubters, Deion sure enough shut their mouths and, like he says, he’s got receipts.
Because I was busy at the day job this afternoon, I wasn’t paying attention to football and, quite frankly, it had slipped my mind today was the deadline for final pre-season roster cuts in the NFL, when all teams have to get down to the 53-player limit. When I finally remembered to check, I was stunned: The New England Patriots waived both their backup quarterbacks, leaving Mac Jones as the only QB on the roster.
Every Patriots fan — and no doubt a majority of sports writers covering the NFL — had the same thought: “What the hell is Bill Belichick doing?”
As a rookie last year, Zappe stepped in after both Jones and veteran backup Bryan Hoyer were injured, and did so well that many fans in New England wanted him to keep the starting job. “Zappe! Zappe!” was the chant heard in Gillette Stadium any time Mac Jones appeared to be struggling later in the season. So how could it be possible that Belichick was ready to ditch the 2022 fourth-round pick? As for Cunningham, he was an undrafted free agent whom the Patriots hoped to convert to a wide receiver, but generated lots of excitement during a brief preseason appearance at QB, when he ran for a TD against the Houston Texans.
Surely, there must be some kind of plan? Another one of those genius four-dimensional chess moves by the Greatest Football Coach Ever, right? I mean, right? We’ll see. The problem is that the Patriots are keeping six wide receivers on the roster, and have also beefed up their reserves on the offensive line. In order to get down to 53 players, they had to do something, and the thinking seems to be that (a) other teams have had to make similarly difficult choices, (b) maybe no other team in the league really needs a backup QB at this points, so therefore perhaps (c) neither Zappe nor Cunningham will be claimed off waivers by any other team, however (d) it’s unlikely both Zappe and Cunningham will get claimed off waivers, in which case (e) at least one of them will be able to return to the Patriots on the practice squad, besides which (f) there’s almost certainly some other veteran backup QB available that New England could grab, if worse comes to worse.
That’s my analysis, anyway. The Patriots recently traded for two offensive tackles. Between now and the Sept. 10 season-opener, it’s likely New England will cut at least one more offensive lineman, thus opening a slot on the 53-man roster for whoever it is Belichick uses as the backup quarterback. But that’s as much four-dimensional chess as I can glean out of it, and I think most of the sports writers and TV commentators don’t have any better insight than I do. Bill Belichick is to football coaching what Oppenheimer was to nuclear weapons.
An absolute stunner. Zappe didn’t have a good camp, but I didn’t expect this at all. The #Patriots must be looking elsewhere for a backup quarterback. https://t.co/8EiQR9gmC3
Former NFL tackle Michael Oher filed a lawsuit against the Tuohy family, who helped him become a football standout, a story made famous in the 2009 film The Blind Side, for which Sandra Bullock won an Academy Award. Oher recently filed a lawsuit claiming that the Tuohys cheated him out of his rightful share of the proceeds of that film, a claim which the producers of the film have now rebutted — or, at least, they’ve tried to clarify the facts, contrary to misinformation promoted by the media.
According to the producers, the entire payment to the Tuohy family and Oher was less than $800,000. That’s all they made from this Academy Award-winning movie about their lives, and why? Because the movie is, in turn, based upon a book of the same title by Michael Lewis. So the producers paid Lewis for the rights to his book, and also contracted with Oher and the Lewis family, for what seems rather a small sum, all things considered. Should Oher have gotten more money for the movie rights? Perhaps, but it’s not as if the Tuohy family made a fortune off it:
The producers explained how the rights to Lewis’ book and associated rights contracts were negotiated by “Twentieth Century Fox and inherited by Alcon when the film was put in turnaround.” The film would go on to be released by Warner Bros. They also pointed out that in 2006, contracts and “the limitations of what college athletes were able to do and maintain eligibility, were very different than they are today.”
“The deal that was made by Fox for the Tuohys and Michael Oher’s life rights was consistent with the marketplace at that time for the rights of relatively unknown individuals. Therefore, it did not include significant payouts in the event of the film’s success,” they said.
“As a result, the notion that the Tuohys were paid millions of dollars by Alcon to the detriment of Michael Oher is false,” they added, before sharing how much Alcon paid the talent agency that represented the Tuohys and Oher.
The producers explain that, prior to the movie’s release, nobody thought it would be the smash hit it subsequently became, which in turn explains why it “was put in turnaround” — sold from one studio (Fox) to another (Warner Brothers) during the development process.
What’s most interesting to me in all this is that the original book The Blind Side wasn’t really about Michael Oher. His personal story — plucked out of poverty in Memphis to become a football star for suburban Briarcrest Christian School — was merely the narrative vehicle by which author Michael Lewis told the story of how changes in the game of football had impacted the value of offensive tackles:
The book is an examination of how offensive football strategy has evolved over the past three decades in large part due to linebacker Lawrence Taylor’s arrival in the 1980s and how this evolution has placed an increased importance on the role of the offensive left tackle. Most quarterbacks are right-handed and in order to throw, they stand with their left shoulder facing down field. Thus, they turn their backs to linebackers and other defenders pass rushing from the left side, creating a vulnerable “blind side” that the left tackle must protect. Taylor’s speed and power changed the role of outside linebacker to become a more attacking, aggressive position. This in turn caused teams to emphasize larger and more agile left tackles.
In other words, because extraordinary pass rushers like Lawrence Taylor had made it more difficult for offensive linemen to protect quarterbacks on passing plays, this created an incentive to find linemen — and particularly the left “blind side” tackle — with the rare combination of size and speed necessary to deal with the improvements on defense. The story Lewis was telling about football in the book The Blind Side was similar to what he’d done with baseball in his 2003 book Moneyball.
Lewis has a background in economics, and worked for Salomon Brothers before becoming an author. His specialty is as a storyteller explaining how economic incentives function — where there is an opportunity to make big money, people have a strong motive find a way to gain a competitive advantage. The real human lives affected by this, for better or worse, are at the heart of the storytelling that Lewis does with such success. As for Michael Oher, after playing college ball for Ole Miss, he was picked in the first round of the 2009 NFL draft by the Baltimore Ravens, and signed a five-year contract reportedly worth $13.5 million. Three seasons later the Ravens won Super Bowl XLVII, and a year after that, Oher became a free agent, signing a four-year contract with the Tennessee Titans reportedly worth $20 million, but he lasted only one season in Tennessee before being released, and then was signed by the Carolina Panthers in 2015 on a reported $7 million two-year contract. His NFL career ended two years later, when Oher was 31.
It is impossible to know exactly how much Oher actually earned during his eight seasons in the NFL. The reported value of a contract usually includes incentives which a player may or may not make. However, it’s a safe guess that Oher’s total career earnings were somewhere above $20 million, which is a heckuva lot more than the Tuohy’s earned during the same timespan, so why is he suing them now? It makes no sense.
We can only speculate on Michael Oher’s motives in turning against the Tuohy family like this. If I had to guess, I’d imagine Oher’s experiencing some financial difficulty in his post-NFL life, and listened to some of his “friends” telling him he had been unfairly exploited. The explanation from the film producer makes that seem unlikely, and this sad chapter in Oher’s life is an unfortunate turn in what had been an inspiring story.
In the 2021 NFL draft, five quarterbacks were first-round picks:
1. Trevor Lawrence (Clemson) — Jacksonville Jaguars
2. Zack Wilson (Brigham Young) — New York Jets
3. Trey Lawrence (North Dakota State) — S.F. 49ers
11. Justin Fields (Ohio State) — Chicago Bears
15. Mac Jones (Alabama) — New England Patriots
Being a lifelong Alabama fan, of course I was outraged by the implied disrespect to my boy Mac, who had just led the Crimson Tide to an undefeated season and a national championship. Mac had the most passing yards of any college quarterback that season, and set an NCAA record for highest percentage of passes completed (77.4). My sense of insult was subsequently vindicated by the results of the first season for these five rookie quarterbacks:
Mac Jones — completed 352 of 521 passing attempts (67.6%) for 3,801 yards, 22 TDs, 13 interceptions, plus 129 yards and zero TDs rushing — 3,930 total yards, 22 total TDs.
Trevor Lawrence — completed 359 of 602 passing attempts (59.6%) for 3,641 yards, 12 TDs, 17 interceptions, plus 334 yards and 2 TDs rushing — 3,975 total yards, 14 total TDs.
Zack Wilson — completed 213 of 383 passing attempts (55.6%) for 2,334 yards, 9 TDs, 11 interceptions, plus 185 yards and 4 TDs rushing — 2,519 total yards, 15 total TDs.
Justin Fields — completed 159 of 270 passing attempts (58.9%) for 1,870 yards, 7 TDs, 10 interceptions, plus 420 yards and 2 TDs rushing — 2,290 total yards, 9 total TDs.
Trey Lance — completed 41 of 71 passing attempts (57.7%) for 603 yards, 5 TDs, 2 interceptions, plus 168 yards and 1 TD rushing — 771 total yards, 15 total TDs.
Mac Jones had more touchdowns, more passing yards and a higher completion percentage than all four of the quarterbacks drafted ahead of him. Only Trevor Lawrence was close to matching Jones’s rookie performance and, it must be admitted, part of Lawrence’s problem in 2021 was that the head coach in Jacksonville was a notorious asshole.
Leaving aside Lawrence, who led the Jaguars to the playoffs last year and appears to have a bright future ahead of him in the NFL, the three other QBs drafted ahead of Mac Jones in 2021 can all be classified as failures. The Chicago Bears still consider Justin Fields their starting QB, but the Bears went 3-14 last season, and their decision to stick with Fields is just more evidence that the team ownership is not serious about winning football games (as if more evidence were needed). The Jets, by bringing in Aaron Rodgers at QB, have more or less admitted that drafting Wilson was a mistake. And then there is the case of Trey Lance.
Prior to the 2021 draft, the 49ers traded their first-round picks in 2021, 2022 and 2023, as well as their third-round pick in 2022, to the Miami Dolphins in order to move up to the third pick in the draft. It was widely speculated at the time that San Francisco did this with the intent of picking Mac Jones who, as I say, had just won the national championship and set an NCAA record for completion percentage as a senior at Alabama. Instead, the 49ers picked Trey Lance. Why?
Despite early interest in Alabama’s Mac Jones, Lance won out at No. 3 because the Niners believed he had the traits to develop into one of those special players.
On the field, they saw above-average arm strength and elite physical attributes. Off it, they saw a magnetic personality and work ethic.
“Kyle [Shanahan, San Francisco’s head coach] is always looking for ways to expand the offense and come up with all of these great schemes that he does, and Trey was more mobile than Jimmy [Garropolo, the 49ers’ starting QB] allowed,” a team personnel source said. “That opened up possibilities.”
Lance arrived from FCS North Dakota State with the fewest college pass attempts (318) of any first-round quarterback selected in the past 41 years, so the Niners expected a learning curve.
Oh, “elite physical attributes.” Well, that hasn’t translated to a successful NFL career yet, and it probably never will. Why did Trey Lance have so few pass attempts in college? As a redshirt freshman in 2019, Lance led North Dakota State to a Division I (FCS) national championship, but the team’s 2020 season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lance could have kept playing for North Dakota State, but opted instead to enter the NFL draft, so the 49ers were basically picking him on the basis of a single season — and not in the top tier of college competition.
Forgive me for not being impressed by the statistics that Lance accumulated in 2019 against such football opponents as Nicholls, Southern Illinois and UC-Davis. In the FCS championship game, North Dakota State defeated James Madison University — a fine school, located in the scenic Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, but what do you think would happen if JMU were to play the University of Alabama? At Alabama, Mac Jones had to wait his turn at quarterback behind Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa — both now NFL starters — and Mac’s impressive statistics his senior season were accumulated against such opponents as Texas A&M, Georgia, LSU, Florida, Notre Dame and Ohio State.
Oh, but Mac doesn’t have a “magnetic personality” or whatever, and so the 49ers, having traded away three first-round picks in order to move up in the 2021 draft, instead decided to take Trey Lance.
The idea seemed to be that Lance would serve his rookie year as an understudy to the veteran Garropolo, who had a history of injuries that might give the rookie a chance to start. Sure enough, in Week 4 of the season, Jimmy G injured his calf, and Lance came in for the second half against the Seattle Seahawks, throwing for two touchdowns, but still losing 28-21. In Week 5, Lance started against the Arizona Cardinals, and lost 17-10. Garropolo was healthy enough to start in Week 6, so Lance went back to the bench until Week 17, after Garropolo had injured his thumb in the previous week’s game. As the starter against the Houston Texans, Lance threw for two touchdowns in a 23-7 victory. But Houston was one of the worst teams in the league, finishing the season 3-14, and by the time Lance got his first NFL victory as a starter, Mac Jones had already started 16 games for the Patriots, winning 10 of them.
Despite the paucity of Lance’s success as a rookie, the 49ers named him as their starter going into the 2022 season, but that didn’t last long. He lost the season opener against the Chicago Bears, and in the second game, against the Seattle Seahawks, Lance suffered a season-ending broken ankle in the first quarter. Jimmy G then came in to lead the 49ers to victory, and remained the starting QB until Week 13, when he injured his foot in the first quarter against the Miami Dolphins and San Francisco was forced to call on the services of rookie QB Brock Purdy, whom the team had drafted with the very last pick (262nd overall) of that year’s NFL draft. The unheralded rookie proved to be phenomenal, leading the 49ers on a seven-game winning streak that only ended with a loss in the NFC Championship Game against the Eagles, after Purdy was knocked out of the game with an elbow injury.
Garropolo, as a free agent, signed with the Las Vegas Raiders in the off-season, but Purdy’s elbow is supposedly healed, and what are the chances that Trey Lance, with his “magnetic personality,” will see any significant playing time with the 49ers this year? Not too good. Lance’s “elite physical attributes” are likely diminished after breaking his ankle last season, and so it would appear that San Francisco more or less wasted their first-round pick, when they could have had Mac Jones instead.
