Trey Lance ‘Excited’ To Open The Season As The 49ers Starting Quarterback

A lot of speculation has surrounded the quarterback position for the San Francisco 49ers during the preseason. Bringing back former starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo doesn’t help. Nevertheless, head coach Kyle Shanahan and the coaching staff have made it clear from Day 1: Trey Lance is going to be the starting quarterback for the Red & Gold this season.

As for Lance, he’s happy to enter the regular season as the starter, excited to face the Chicago Bears Sunday afternoon.

“I’m excited. Real similar to the weeks I started last year in a preparation standpoint,” Lance said Wednesday before practice. “It’s great to have guys in the [quarterback] room, great to have Jimmy in there to bounce ideas off of.”

Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo running simultaneous throws at 49ers practice ahead of the season opener at Chicago pic.twitter.com/ZlmbfTBaWC

— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) September 7, 2022

The second-year prospect hasn’t had a regular season ramp-up as a starter since his final full season at North Dakota State in 2019. Three years later, Lance is relieved to have a “breath of fresh air” in terms of game-planning for a new opponent each week.

“Kind of a breath of fresh air for sure. Excited to game-plan for somebody, not kind of just running our training camp scripts and going against our defense. Get to kind of put plays in for certain situations and different things like that. So it’s been an awesome experience,” Lance said.

But like the lead-up to the regular season, drama continues to follow the 22-year-old quarterback after Shanahan announced Trey Lance was not named one of the captains this season.

“Not a lot of rookies are captains. I realize it’s his second year, but he’s a rookie for us,” Shanahan said.

When asked for his reaction, Lance shrugged the controversy off like it was nothing, acknowledging that he voted for the six captains as well.

Trey Lance on not being a 49ers captain:

“Obviously, that’s a goal of mine but I don’t think you can look at any of those six guys and be like, ‘That guy’s a bozo.’” pic.twitter.com/PGgG2ESWEu

— 95.7 The Game (@957thegame) September 7, 2022

“Obviously that’s a goal of mine,” Lance said. “You can’t look at any six of those guys and say he’s a bozo. All have played at a high level. I voted for each one of them and they all deserve it. It’s a goal of mine.”

The six captains include: Tight end George Kittle, left tackle Trent Williams, linebacker Fred Warner, safety Jimmie Ward, and defensive linemen Arik Armstead and Nick Bosa.

To watch the full press conference, click here.

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