Kyle Shanahan revisits how Trey Lance’s finger injury impacted his development

The San Francisco 49ers are hoping that quarterback Trey Lance’s best playing days are ahead of him. After a rookie season on the bench and a sophomore campaign derailed by a season-ending injury, Lance now enters his third season competing to be Brock Purdy’s backup with veteran Sam Darnold. Of course, Purdy is working his way back from a major injury of his own, leaving the door open for Lance to make a case of his own to be the team’s top quarterback on the depth chart.

During his press conference on Tuesday, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked about a finger injury Lance dealt with as a rookie. His answer suggested that while it did not keep him out for an extended period of time, it forced him into some bad habits that he needed to dedicate significant time to unlearn.

Here’s Shanahan’s full quote:

“I think it impacted him a ton because he had to adjust it during the season just to be able to get through. He was healthy, but it didn’t heal healthy, so he had to change how he played in the middle of the year while mainly taking scout team reps and being prepared as a number two except for a couple games. Going into the offseason having to re-correct that. I think it took him all offseason, so he worked at re-correcting that throughout the whole offseason and then he was just thrown into practice with us going into this year. That was corrected throughout last year. His grip and everything. I thought he had got that going this time with his time away. He knew what he had to focus on. He had known what he had struggled with, he had known what he had done good with. He’d gotten to see two different quarterbacks playing our offense two different ways and I just think his time away was a lot more deliberate and, in a position where he knew what he could isolate on, which I think helped him compared to last year.”