While Trey Lance rests up during the 49ers bye week, he probably has no idea how much he needs Kyle Shanahan to brush up on the last time he had a quarterback with wheels.
Shanahan, during his Monday chat with media last week, said something that especially jumped out in light of Lance’s debut against the Cardinals the day before. After watching the film, he said he was “totally good with” the mix of designed runs and off-schedule runs. Said it kept the defense honest and got them to play a certain way. The price, though, had to be a bit concerning. Lance was tackled A LOT, before you throw in the two sacks and four QB hits he absorbed.
The combination of scrambles and designed runs produced 16 carries for Lance, while every other ball carrier — Elijah Mitchell, Trey Sermon, Deebo Samuel and Kyle Juszczyk — combined for 12 rushes. Even more grimace-worthy: Lance ran up the middle 11 times. Designed or not, it’s probably not a sustainable plan to have the quarterback regularly venturing into the heart of the defense. That’s proven by Lance sustaining a knee injury in his first start.
Shanahan has seen this movie before. He has to look no further than Robert Griffin III — who was his quarterback in Washington in 2012 and 2013 — to know even agile quarterbacks don’t hold up well against the physicality of
