Few teams have been more successful over the past decade than the San Francisco 49ers. After all, you don’t make it to two Super Bowls without having some really talented teams led by strong coaching staffs.
Of course, the 49ers weren’t able to capitalize on their trips to the promised land, and one of their trades could certainly be to blame.
Specifically, the Trey Lance trade. In fact, Bleacher Report’s Kristopher Knox recently said the 49ers’ decision to move up and select Lance with the third overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft was the second-worst trade of the past decade.
“Lance went on to start a grand total of four games for the 49ers,” Knox wrote. “He couldn’t unseat Jimmy Garoppolo as a rookie, suffered a season-ending ankle injury in Year 2 and was cleanly outpaced by Purdy heading into Year 3. He spent his third and fourth seasons as a third-stringer in Dallas after being traded for a fourth-round pick. This was a disaster of a trade from the beginning, especially when you consider Lawrence was always going to be the No. 1 pick and is now the only one of five QBs drafted in the first round that year still with the team that drafted him. Fortunately for Lynch and Shanahan, Purdy became a surprise star, while Cleveland’s Deshaun Watson folly prevented this trade from becoming the worst of the last decade.”
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The 49ers sent the 12th overall pick, a 2021 third-round pick, plus first-round selections in 2022 and 2023 to the Miami Dolphins in exchange for the third overall pick. With that, they selected Lance, and the rest is history. Of course, this trade would look much, much worse had the 49ers had uncovered hidden gem Brock Purdy with the final pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
Either way, it’s hard not to look at this trade and wonder how the 49ers may have achieved more had they made other choices.
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