Cowboys Monday Morning After...They traded for Trey Lance

This one is extremely complicated to digest, so let me give it my best effort

I spent considerable time the last two weeks thinking about the 49ers QB situation. Then, on Friday, it started hitting closer to home.

It was weird to me that San Francisco was in this situation that I found endlessly fascinating, and before I knew, I would be writing about part of it from a Cowboys perspective.

It was about 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan having a system that seemed somewhat QB-proof and a roster that, apart from that position, seems ready to win a Super Bowl every year. Very few people have come as close to the Lombardi Trophy as Shanahan has and not actually won it, between the close calls Super Bowls 51 and 54, it just seems like it’s a matter of time for the 49ers coach.

Now, Matt Ryan was at a different level than Jimmy Garoppolo, but the general idea with the Shana-plan was that if the system was cooking right, the QB might not matter as much.

But, when given a chance to handpick his QB in the 2021 draft, at No. 3 overall, he decided that Trey Lance would be his guy. Lance was designed in a lab to be perfect for the play-action bootlegs and rollouts where Shanny could gain advantages of having a QB with dual-threat skills to terrorize defenses.

Lance was young and raw, but give him a few years and this thing will cook, with a rookie QB contract to boot. The rookie contract, in theory, allows them to spend that surplus on building a crazy-talented roster everywhere else why you other teams spend $40-$50m on QB1. Then, watch out.

Funny thing, though. Our projections of raw and developing prospects are based on ceilings. And sometimes, with athletes and injuries and pressure and circumstances, it can be more about the floor than the ceiling. That’s why Brock Purdy entering the drama as the 262nd pick at the very end of the 7th round in 2022 changed the math dramatically.

Purdy stepped in late in 2022 when the 49ers QB situation was decimated. They had almost no choice, so they went with Mr. Irrelevant. And he was solid. He made almost no mistakes. He got the job done and he seemed to understand the position and defenses much better than Lance. Now, Purdy wasn’t being compared to Matt Ryan or even Garoppolo. He was just being compared to Trey Lance moving forward.

Now, Lance could do things Purdy can’t dream of doing. Purdy can’t fire the ball down the field with a flick of the wrist. And he darn sure can’t run in the open field like a deer. Purdy wasn’t winning a foot race or a throwing contest against the No. 3 pick in the draft, nor was he going to get chance after chance because they didn’t spend four significant draft picks to get him.

But, between 2022 and 2023, Purdy won his coach’s heart because of his processing ability. With each frustrating Lance rep in practice, and each Purdy simple read and ability to run a designed played, Shanahan followed his coaching instincts and turned his back on any sunk cost fallacy that applies to the No. 3 pick.

Shanahan knows he’ll be mocked for screwing up that trade and yet he also knows it won’t matter if the 49ers keep winning and contending for Super Bowls.

The past is a prologue, nothing more.

Shanahan lived with both the No. 3 and the No. 262 pick, he quickly learned which one he trusted and which one frustrated him — or more specifically which one can actually run the play the way it was designed.

So, he walked away and traded Lance for as much as he could get. A fourth-round pick from the Dallas Cowboys. It’s amazing that a first-rounder in 2021, a first in 2022, and a first in 2023 along with a third-round pick in 2022 can only net a fourth-round pick in 2024. But the San Francisco Lance experiment is over and Shanahan went with the guy he thought was the future.

Is he right? Is Purdy a franchise QB for years to come? Or will he be competing with Sam Darnold in just a few months to handle the expectations of a team that seems to have everything they need but a true QB1 (still)?

We will find out soon enough. But, that isn’t the question that resulted in this trade.

The real question, which Shanahan contemplated heavily was was this: Does Trey Lance give them a better chance to win than Brock Purdy?

For the Shana-plan, it was a resounding NO.

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Few teams would walk away from the biggest trade in their franchise history this quickly. Most teams would ride that trade to the bottom of the ocean before they admitted they screwed up. Heck, most coaches would probably be unemployed, but Shanahan has won enough and was given all the power when he was hired by San Francisco (he was allowed to hire his own general manager in 2017, no one in the NFL gets to do that…) that we know he could probably survive years of mistakes.

Heck, this is the same guy who drafted DT Solomon Thomas over Patrick Mahomes and DeShaun Watson back in 2018, which started this mess in the first place. Sure looks like that didn’t really set them back too much neither.

But, on Friday, the Cowboys got in the mix with Trey Lance. There was no indication that this move was possible before it hit the news. It does follow an ideal trend of the Cowboys deciding that Day 3 draft picks are low percentage shots and if you can flip them for known professional assets like Stephon Gilmore, Brandin Cooks and even now Lance, you are probably wise to do so.

This is truer than ever since the league has made compensatory picks similar to candy tossed during parades. If you are extra aggressive from your curbside vantage point, you can scoop up several each season and profit with those extra bites of the proverbial apple.

The price the Cowboys paid to get two years of Lance is not a big deal, at all. But, the overall timing of it is confusing.

Before we get to that, I have been asked to share my view from the 2021 Draft on my homework on the player himself. So, let’s get in the time machine and head back to April 2021 and my full report at the Athletic on college prospect Trey Lance, North Dakota State:

Lance had a difficult time getting the attention of the bigger schools out of high school as a three-star dual-threat quarterback in Minnesota. In fact, his home state Gophers famously wanted him to play defensive back for them before he committed to North Dakota State to follow the path of Carson Wentz. With fewer than 300 college throws and really just one year of playing the position at the FCS level, he definitely is below the thresholds of where you need an experience level to be, but that won’t knock him down very far.

(Statistics courtesy of Sports-Reference.com)

(Courtesy Mockdraftable.com)

Positives: Lance has a loaded toolbox. He has an easy arm and can absolutely rip throws where they need to go with velocity and conviction. He also runs better than pretty much anyone in this group as he long strides his way down the field as if he was a full-time runner. He can get to top speed in a hurry and isn’t afraid of taking on tacklers. His second phase will be a real problem in the NFL for defenses that have to corral him in space. He doesn’t make many mistakes in his processing and he also gets absurd reviews for his interest in maximizing his opportunities and understanding of how hard it is to play the position. He appears to be ready and while he will need time, he convinces you he will be worth the wait. Lance is often compared to Buffalo’s Josh Allen in his skill set.

Concerns: There are incredibly accomplished and wise QB people who will swear to you that if you don’t have accuracy and the ability to put throws where you wish to put them, then you will have a hard time ever being a star quarterback. Lance has real accuracy issues on tape (compared to this group) that suggest mechanical wavering and even a slower delivery that might telegraph intentions at the next level. On top of this, he played for an offense that believed in power running as a top priority, so his general experience in seeing pass defenses is limited and he was able to play in desirable situations so much more that we are guessing what third-and-long looks like for him. He also misses too many deep throws given the number of opportunities play action sets up.

Overall: There is plenty to like and he looks like the exact quarterback you would want in a Shanahan-style offense that features everything looking like a run until you pull the ball into space with a quarterback who can run and pass from outside the pocket and even tuck and get past the sticks by stressing the deployment of a defense. I like Lance, but the scheme has to be right as does the timetable for when he plays. He has Jordan Love comps and while I think Lance is better, I also think I would limit my excitement to a FIRST-SECOND ROUND grade and list him fourth of these five.

I remember thinking he was an absolute project, like Jordan Love (famously taken in the 2020 draft and only now is starting to play in Year 4), and the downside of landing in San Francisco was that he would have to play quickly for a team ready to win the Super Bowl. He wasn’t treated like a project, they wanted to ask a 20-year-old, who had barely played any football at the collegiate level, to step right in and be able to compete against Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers in the competitive NFC race.

I had him fourth out of five in my QB study for 2021. Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields had high first-round grades and Zach Wilson was a also first-round grade. Then Trey Lance was a 1st-2nd (picks 25-40 or so) and finally Mac Jones was a second rounder.

We are finding out the Cowboys had him as a 2nd round grade, too. I believe in their system, that puts him in that same 25-40 range as well. Sounds like we both were quite interested with the upside but knew it would take a while to develop him.

Did Dallas get an interesting prospect who is still very young and very talented? Yes.

Did they get him at a tremendous savings? Yes.

Does it make much sense? I am not sure.

You see, these QBs are both big money assets and lottery tickets. If one washes out somewhere, you should make a play for him, if you don’t have your guy.

But, if you do have your guy – like Dallas and Dak Prescott – then you would only make the trade if you thought it was a move to bring in a successor to the QB1 throne.

So this would make sense if Dak and Trey had timelines that fit together.

They do not.

Prescott is under contract through the 2024 season. So is Lance. Both are scheduled to be unrestricted free agents in the spring of 2025. The difference, of course, is that Prescott knows what he is doing as a QB in the NFL and is currently sitting on a cap-hit of about $59.5 million for 2024.

Dallas will likely negotiate that cap hit down before 2024 to through a contract extension. The Cowboys also can’t franchise take or trade him, his contract protects against that.

Despite your wildest dreams, the odds of Prescott being this team’s QB1 in 2026 and probably 2027 are about 98% unless he retires. And he isn’t doing that. The Cowboys locked themselves in at this position once they decided to continue to moving Dak’s money back each season.

Even if you get Prescott to give you a team-friendly deal and stay at around $40 million per season – which isn’t very likely – you probably aren’t going to spend too much on his backup.

So, where does that leave the future of Trey Lance? He is also under contract through 2024, but does have a team option for 2025, if the Cowboys wish to activate it in April of 2024. Tua Tagovailoa’s option came in at over $23 million when the Dolphins picked it up a few months back, so Lance would be north of that. In other words, the Cowboys are not picking that up.

That means Dallas has 2023 and 2024 to develop Trey Lance.

But, how would you develop Lance in 2023? Even if Prescott got hurt, Cooper Rush already has the back-up job. Lance doesn’t know the offense, has missed all of game, and probably needs weeks to learn his teammates. This season is essentially a redshirt year in Dallas for Trey.

Next spring, in the 2024 offseason, the Cowboys can allow Lance to play constantly to give him an honest chance to win the QB2 job over Rush. Lance will be making more and has a higher upside than Cooper Rush — who is surely a few years from being a QB coach. Lance will be 24 years old next year. If his preseason tape dazzles, the Cowboys could try to trade him or allow him to play behind Prescott for the year.

But, is there a future beyond that in Dallas? Only if there is no market for him in the spring of 2025 as a free agent. Dallas will be bound by Prescott’s finances, where they have almost zero leverage, unless they are disciplined enough to not touch Dak’s deal and to let him play under his current 2024 contract at $60 million. At which time, would they let Prescott walk and let Lance take over?

It wouldn’t make any sense both financially and football-wise.

Trust me. Going back to the Shanahan’s decision on Mr Irrelevant vs Lance, if Lance couldn’t beat out a guy that simply ran the plays the way they were meant to be run, pulled the trigger when a slant is open, and can see the safeties, how do you expect Lance to outperform a NFL veteran who has 6,500 plays under his belt along with 63 NFL wins?

Maybe Dallas thinks they can re-sign him to nice backup QB deal in the spring of 2025 and have a QB2 who has a similar play-style to their starter. Or Maybe Dallas thinks they can get a nice compensatory pick for the 2025 draft and get their 4th rounder back when Lance signs elsewhere.

But, beyond those two scenarios?

To boil it down: I really don’t see much future in Dallas for Trey Lance.

His tape suggests (which I will break down in a second piece later this week, because we go above and beyond for you at #SturmStack) that the development need to see from Lance is eons away. And how do you get it in Dallas unless Prescott suffers an enormous injury and Dallas is not trying to win?

As a friend told me, this feels like you were walking around Costco and saw a deal on something that you absolutely did not need. But the price of that tetherball pole was so low that you talked yourself into it anyway. The look on your wife’s face when you got home and explained it was 70% off the regular price told you that maybe you should have just kept walking.

You just bought a tetherball pole that you are pretty sure you won’t ever need.

So, congratulations? In the words of the great Greggo, “I guess I just don’t get it.”

Next in this space: We look carefully at the Trey Lance All-22 tape.