What if Trey Lance is actually here to help the Cowboys in 2023?
There are plenty of positives to the Dallas Cowboys trading for Trey Lance. He is a 6-foot-3, 224-pound quarterback who has plenty of athleticism and had enough potential to be a top-three pick in the 2021 NFL draft. He is also only 23 years old and has only 420 pass snaps combined in his college and professional career. Mike McCarthy has a proven history of developing quarterbacks, and this could be his latest guy.
Owner and general manager Jerry Jones might have found an upgrade at the third quarterback spot, one who can push for the backup QB role. In poker there is a term called pot odds; it describes the ratio between the size of the pot and the bet amount. In this case, the pot size represents the talent of Lance, and the size of the bet was a fourth-round pick and a minimal cap hit. That is a bet any poker player would make, and fans of Dallas know that Jones can be a gambler.
Dallas revamped their analytics department in the offseason. Is it possible this trade was about the new director of strategic football operations, John Park, or the new strategic football analyst, Sarah Mallepalle, seeing other ways Lance could impact winning this season? Here is a look at how Lance could impact this team in 2023 and beyond.
The Mike McCarthy play
McCarthy has a who’s who of quarterbacks that played and developed under his watch. He was a QB coach for the Kansas City Chiefs while Joe Montana was finishing his career with them. He had the same job and later was the head coach with the Green Bay Packers while Brett Farve was with them. He also helped develop Aaron Brooks, Alex Smith, and, of course, Aaron Rodgers.
Lance is a nice new piece of clay to mold for McCarthy. At North Dakota State, Lance was dominant in his one complete season. He showed skill in the passing game, making full field reads and setting protections for the offense pre-snap. His completion percentage was just under 67%, and he threw for 28 touchdowns without tossing a single interception in 2019. His athleticism was a huge asset as he added 1,100 yards on the ground and 11 scores.
Dak Prescott is 30, and this coach has been through the waiting game before with Farve and Rodgers. Get Lance prepared in the next three to five seasons, and he could be Prescott’s successor.
The Jerry Jones investment
Trading for a young asset with the potential of Lance is simply great business. A fourth-round pick can end up being an excellent player on a team and the Cowboys have routinely found contributors in this round. Starting center Tyler Biadasz. RB1Tony Pollard and TE1 Jake Ferguson were all fourth rounders. Dorance Armstrong, added 8.5 sacks last year, and of course Prescott is the best of the bunch.
Some may see this as a reason not to give up a fourth, but perhaps it should be looked at as an unconventional way to use the resource. Lance could develop well enough that he signs elsewhere, netting Dallas a compensatory pick that could be better than the one they invested to bring him in. There is even an outside chance he plays his way back into a franchise QB, and then the Cowboys could get a big payoff for Lance in a trade.
The Jones family and Will McClay could teach a clinic on how to take players on the cheap and get good value out of them. Robert Quinn and Randall Cobb are two of the latest examples. Lance could be that type of move.
Lance helps the team win this season
Multiple reasons are being discussed for why Dallas made this move, from the ones listed above to less reasonable ones, such as Lance being Prescott’s replacement if the team doesn’t improve in the playoffs this season. The one that isn’t brought up is, what if the objective was to help the team win games this year?
The Cowboys play a possible 11 games against teams with mobile quarterbacks, including six in their division. Jalen Hurts and Daniel Jones are apparent, but Sam Howell also became a running threat in his last season in college. He rushed for over 800 yards and improved his yards per carry average from 1.6 to 4.5. Lance makes for a much better scout team QB for these matchups. Preparing the defense for these games is enormous and could be the difference between going 7-4 or 9-2, and that might be why the Cowboys end up with the top seed in the NFC instead of being a wild-card team.
Lance also has inside intel on the team that eliminated Dallas the past two seasons. He has insider knowledge of the playbook and play-calling style of San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan. He spent three off-seasons in their system, learning their style, checks, and the coach’s thought process.
On the other side of the ball, he practiced against their defense and even saw adjustments the new defensive coordinator, Steve Wilks, was adding this year. In matchups as close as the Cowboys and 49ers have been, every advantage could be a key to victory.
You can find Mike Crum on Twitter @cdpiglet or YouTube on the Across the Cowboys Podcast.
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