One play, one throw, one moment. That's all Trey Lance needed to light 49ers Twitter on fire Saturday night in his NFL preseason debut.
The recipient of Lance's eye-opening 80-yard touchdown was receiver Trent Sherfield. While Sherfield has been building a connection with all of the 49ers' quarterbacks in training camp, he and Lance have been in sync for a while now. The fourth-year pro couldn't help but heap praise on the rookie QB after the 49ers' 19-16 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
"Being able to play with Trey is an amazing thing," Sherfield said to reporters. "He's a young phenom, man. He's going to be really, really good in this league. Just building that relationship with him has been really, really good."
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Lance completed five of his 14 pass attempts for 128 yards and one touchdown. Multiple drops from receivers didn't help him, and the young quarterback was sacked a handful of times too. Sherfield finished with the one catch, which just happened to be the highlight of the night.
And he had a feeling coach Kyle Shanahan was waiting for the perfect time to use the play call that resulted in the early touchdown.
"We had that play planned for the whole week and was pretty sure that [head coach] Kyle [Shanahan] was going to call it for me," Sherfield said. "I kind of just walk myself through that play all week, trying to kind of envision how the route would be and scoring the touchdown and all those good things.
"Great ball by [QB] Trey [Lance]. Put it in a good position for me to go make a play and to go score a touchdown and help the team.”
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Everyone already knew the potential and big-time skills of Lance. Just like Chiefs coach Andy Reid, what might have impressed Sherfield most about the rookie is the mental side of the game.
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"For me, just watching him out there today, he looked very, very poised," Sherfield said. "Very, very poised. You expect some guys, rookies, to be a little bit shaken up, but Trey, he’s not. He’s not shaken at all.
"He loves the moment. He plays big in the moment, man. I can't wait to see him continue to grow and continue to ascend.”