The 49ers have made a statement at the starting quarterback position: Trey Lance is the guy they believe can lead the franchise to its sixth Super Bowl championship. San Francisco paid a hefty price to leap from No. 12 overall to No. 3 in the 2021 NFL Draft to select the North Dakota State product.
Furthermore, the 49ers don't have a first-round pick until 2024 and have benched Jimmy Garoppolo, who got them to Super Bowl LIV and the 2022 NFC Championship Game, in favor of Lance.
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Ahead of the Lance era's official start, NBC Sports Bay Area's Matt Maiocco spoke with NBC Sports' Peter King on the latest edition of "49ers Talk" to discuss what he sees from the 22-year-old this preseason.
"He's very confident," King told Maiocco. "... From his conversation with me, I take it that he does a pretty good job of tuning out the outside world."
King also said that he told Lance how different the NFL is regarding young quarterbacks. In the past, teams would be patient to ensure the player was ready when given the starting job.
Now, teams insert the player as a rookie and quickly move on from the quarterback after two or three years, rather than waiting. Still, even with the NFL shifting to this mindset, Lance told King that he's not worried about that heading into Year 1 as a starter.
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"I told him basically that it's so different from when I started covering the NFL, that if you don't succeed as a starting quarterback very early, people are going to give up on you," King said.
"In many cases, the drumbeat kind of ends up drumming the quarterback out of town, and he said, 'Hey, with all due respect to you and the people who do your job. I just don't really care what you say, and I can't. All I care about is what my coaches say.' "
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Lance looked good in his first NFL preseason game in the 49ers' 28-21 win against the Green Bay Packers at Levi's Stadium, including a deep pass to receiver Danny Gray resulting in a 76-yard touchdown. The franchise expects that this is a sign of things to come during the 2022 season.