Gold Standard Podcast: The 49ers need to stop talking about Trey Lance and the draft

The 49ers have been doing a lot of talking lately. Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch have given multiple press conferences since the draft started last Thursday. Shanahan has done interviews on various shows, and even Jed York talked with Matt Maiocco yesterday. Everybody wants to know the dirty details of the Trey Lance selection, when Trey Lance will start, how Jimmy Garoppolo feels about it, and on and on. On today’s Niners Nation Gold Standard Podcast, I offered up a simple piece of advice: stop talking. It isn’t doing you any good.

There are only two reasons to speak with the media if you’re in the NFL:

1) It is mandated by the league

2) To sell something (either a narrative or a product)

The post-draft press conferences have already sold the narratives the team wants out there. No one can predict what the 49ers will do in the draft, and they’re cool keeping Jimmy Garoppolo. By continuing to do interviews, the only thing they do now is risk dispelling those narratives.

Does anyone believe that the team is cool with Trey Lance sitting for two years as Jed York suggested on Wednesday? No, but the 49ers are bending so far backward to convince people that they want Jimmy Garoppolo in town that they end up saying things that cause a collective eye roll from everyone else in the league. Of course, the team wants Lance in there earlier than that. You don’t give up three first-round draft picks (and more) for someone that won’t see a snap until 2023. In no world does that make sense. And if the 49ers truly believe that Jimmy Garoppolo was capable of being the MVP during a Super Bowl season like York stipulated in his comments, they wouldn’t have traded for Lance in the first place.

The time for talking is over. No one else needs to know which QB they liked when they traded up to three, or when Trey Lance will start, or anything else about the team’s quarterback situation. At this point, Lance is the QB they picked, and he’ll start when he starts. They should treat the media like Mark Wahlberg treats the feds in the movie The Departed. The best thing for the 49ers to do would be to put their heads down and focus all of their energy on being great in 2021.

I dove into that and more in today’s Niners Nation Gold Standard Podcast. Take a listen and drop us a five-star rating and a review. It’s here for you, and everywhere podcasts can be found.

Other topics in today’s show

• The BS narrative that will pop up about the 49ers this year
• Why Kyle Shanahan isn’t really any different than he has been all along