It was 364 days ago that the 49ers traded the No. 3 overall pick in the 2021 draft to the Cowboys. Trey Lance, who didn’t take a snap for Dallas in 2023, played 209 snaps this preseason.
That included all 93 in Saturday’s preseason finale against the Chargers when he threw for 323 yards and a touchdown and ran for 90 yards, including a 46-yard touchdown, but also threw five interceptions, including a pick-six.
“I saw some good, and I saw some things you’d like to have back,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. “I hate that those five interceptions are going to be a stat on a game that I couldn’t have asked for more reps and a better situation to watch him play. He needed that, because the one thing he’s missing more than anything is the lack of reps much less NFL reps.
“Certainly, we’re planning on him being on our roster for sure.”
The Cowboys don’t really have a choice with Lance scheduled to count $5.310 million against the salary cap this season and with all the money guaranteed. They will be one of only a handful of teams to burn a spot on the 53-player roster with a third quarterback, and one who isn’t likely to return next season after his contract expires.
Jones, though, has no regrets about the trade, even after 49ers General Manager John Lynch made clear no other team was offering close to what the Cowboys offered for Lance. (The 49ers used the 124th overall pick on Wake Forest safety Malik Mustapha.)
“For a fourth-round pick? Are you kidding me?” Jones said, laughing. “Although we did get Dak [Prescott] with our second fourth-round pick [in 2016], so you’ve got a point there. But we’ve had some that didn’t play [who were drafted] in the fourth round, too.”
The Cowboys could have used the fourth-round pick on a running back, and they could use the roster spot on a player at a different position had they not traded for Lance.
In three preseason games, Lance went 73-of-113 for 662 yards with two touchdowns and five interceptions. He also ran for 168 yards and two touchdowns on 24 carries.
“I think the main thing is the improvement from over the last six weeks. That’s impressive. Very impressive,” Jones said of Lance. “What you’re looking for is the arrow going up? And it’s going up dramatically really every practice and every game. So, I’m going to use that word because he’s doing a lot of things that he wasn’t doing as well early that he’s doing well now. I think we added it up the other day and he hadn’t had but about 1,000 plays in his career since about 2015.”
Lance played nine high school games at quarterback and 17 in college at North Dakota State. He has played eight NFL regular-season games, starting four, and he’s only 24. Maybe he has a future. Maybe not. It’s too small a sample size to know for certain.
Jones isn’t ready to call it a bad trade yet.
“If I could have drawn this up, I would have hoped to get two-thirds of the number of plays you got to see him play [in the preseason],” Jones said. “Was very valuable for us, very valuable for him in light of the fact that he, relatively speaking, has had fewer plays. I saw some things out there that you can win with.”