Trey Lance’s development timeline hit a significant snag Sunday when he suffered a fractured fibula and ligament damage that required surgery and ended his season. His rehab process shouldn’t keep him from being around the team though and continuing his off-field work and developing as much as he can with mental reps.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan on Monday in a conference call said he anticipates the young signal caller being around the team as much as possible in the wake of his injury.
“I’m sure he is going to be around here all the time and do his rehab here and we haven’t even discussed that, but I’d be shocked if it wasn’t that case,” Shanahan said. “So, right now, he got out of surgery a little bit ago. I know we’re all just kind of worried about him and making sure that he’s doing all right mentally and physically. We’ll talk to him here real soon. I know some guys have been over there to already visit him, but yeah, we’re not sure yet, but as soon as he can get back in here and start rehabbing we’re going to want him to be a part of everything. Every meeting he can be at, every practice he can be at. I know he’s not going to be able to do all of that, because of how much he’s going to have to rehab, but especially in those meetings, we don’t plan on Trey being away from us at all. Whenever he is not taking care of his ankle, we plan on him being with us.”
While Lance still needs in-game reps, the fact he’ll be able to be around the team, in meetings and potentially on the field to watch practice should at least allow minor progression for him as an NFL signal caller.
The key beyond that will be Lance being able to get into football work during the offseason. Being around the team will be good, but there’ll be additional mechanical things he’ll need to continue working on in the offseason. As long as Lance is able to do that, his development shouldn’t get pushed too far back.
