Back during the 2017 NFL Draft, the San Francisco 49ers (and nine other teams) made the mistake of not drafting quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who was eventually selected by the Kansas City Chiefs at No. 10 overall.
It’s anyone’s guess how the Niners’ future under center would have panned out if they grabbed Mahomes at No. 2 (or No. 3 after trading down one spot) overall in that year’s draft. Instead, general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan made defensive end Solomon Thomas their first draft pick ever after taking over the franchise earlier that year.
Mahomes, as San Francisco fans can unfortunately remember, has twice been named the NFL MVP and has won the Super Bowl twice, being named the game’s MVP on both occasions.
The 49ers, meanwhile, have struggled with quarterbacking consistency ever since.
In 2021, the Niners aggressively traded up to No. 3 overall in that year’s draft, not wholly unlike Kansas City’s 2017 trade-up for Mahomes.
With that selection, San Francisco grabbed quarterback Trey Lance, who had some similar traits as Mahomes while also being touted as raw but with an unlimited ceiling of potential. Mahomes, of course, had much more collegiate experience than Lance, but that’s beside the point.
Whereas Mahomes replaced a good Chiefs quarterback in Alex Smith, the thinking for Lance was he’d replace another good Niners quarterback in Jimmy Garoppolo.
Mahomes helped KC get over the top, but Lance has just four regular-season starts since 2021, his 2022 campaign derailed by a broken ankle in Week 2. Now, with fellow quarterbacks Brock Purdy and Sam Darnold fighting with Lance for a starting job, the former North Dakota State signal-caller’s future with San Francisco is looking nothing like a Mahomes-type of trajectory.
Recently, a video clip emerged of both Lance and Mahomes working out together in a throwing session. While there isn’t too much to the video, it did create a decent amount of buzz and interest.
Private quarterbacks coach Jeff Christensen reportedly orchestrated the practice session, revealed to The Athletic’s Matt Barrows (h/t 49ers Webzone) recently, and Christensen shared some notable tidbits about how the practices assisted Lance in a major way.
Christensen described addressing the “arm fatigue” that Lance apparently dealt with earlier in his pro career, and the issue was solved by some modest tweaks to the quarterback’s throwing motion.
Additionally, as Christensen noted, Lance watching Mahomes helped matters, too:
“I said [to Lance], “Watch this. Watch what [Mahomes] does here.” It was something I was telling him to do that he wasn’t quite doing. And then he saw Patrick apply it perfectly. And I think that visual buy-in, that mental buy-in, helped him past that mental hump.”
While there isn’t much as far as the interactions between Mahomes and Lance, both of whom are clients of Christensen, it appears as if the two quarterbacks get along well.
“Pat really thinks the world of him,” Christensen added when talking about Lance. “He’s just a really good person, conscientious. He wants to be great.”
Hopefully, Lance can absorb some of that Mahomes-like talent.
