Kyle Shannan comments about Trey Lance:
I always felt like I let Trey down. I wanted him to come here. I believe in Trey. I believed in him before we took him. I’m responsible for that. I didn’t want to throw him into the heat of battle right away, but I thought he needed to play. So we tried to figure out every way we could do that.
If I look back in hindsight, he broke that finger on a helmet in the fourth preseason game against the Raiders. I wish I didn’t put him in a play that broke his finger, because I really thing that hurt him in his first year.
And not only did it hurt him not being able to mix in much, but it hurt him in practice time. Because he had to adjust how he threw and things like that. Which set him back for his second year.
When we went into the second year, we gave him every chance to do it. We were going to make an offense that, to me, gave him the best chance to be successful at that time. Which we did do. And, when you do that, you hope a guy can stay healthy so he can stay out there long enough. But that didn’t last long.
After that, I always felt for him. We continued to work with him. But sometimes things don’t work out.
This gives us great insight on a major reason he is gone. Shanahan clearly feels like Lance needs an offense that is built toward his skill set. When Lance got injured Purdy played well in the system and that meant trying to fit the system around Lance was no longer a priority.
