John Lynch: Trey Lance is a man possessed on recovery

John Lynch recently spoke with Matt Maiocco about the 49ers' offense that, includes Christian McCaffrey, Odell Beckham Jr., and the status of Trey Lance. On the latter, There’s something to be learned from both the question and the answer.

First, Maiocco asked Lynch how Trey Lance was doing and what Lance had to do behind the scenes “to put himself in the best position for next year?”

“You know what you have to do? Exactly what Trey is doing already, and that’s to be a man possessed on recovery and doing everything possible. And that’s what Trey’s doing.

He’s living here. He’s in our team meetings, which has been awesome to see. I think it lifts the guys. He’s invested in his team, but he’s also invested in the healing process. That was frustrating for him early on because it was a non-weight-bearing thing, so he was on that little scooter for a while (laughs), which guys were having fun with him about. Now he’s on crutches, you know, partial weight-bearing, but he’s grinding.

He’s convicted to come back and put himself in the best position to be a guy for this team moving forward. And that’s what it takes, that kind of single-mindedness, and he has it. It’s one of the reasons we brought him here.”

I don’t think it was an accident that Maiocco phrased the question that way. Trey is now another year removed from regular starts at the position, and his injury history now dictates that the team will have to have someone else viable at the position on the roster.

It’s entirely possible that that other person ends up as the starting quarterback in 2023.

It was also smart of Lynch not to make any pronouncements about the position going forward. Even after a nice win in Week 8, this team has been way too inconsistent to be focused on anything other than this moment. They don’t need to worry about next year, or the playoffs, or even the upcoming game against Seattle. Everyone needs to be singularly focused on the game at hand.

Eventually, however, Lynch and company are going to have to think about what they’re going to do at the position. From the second Trey Lance got injured, everyone knew hard decisions were eventually going to have to be made. As John himself said during the interview, “We sure wish that never happened, but it did.”