If you’re wondering why the Dallas Cowboys spent a fourth-round pick to acquire Trey Lance in a trade with the San Francisco 49ers this offseason, now you know why.
The unbeaten 49ers are set to host the 3-1 Cowboys on “Sunday Night Football” in Week 5. The game will feature two of the top teams in the NFC. And Dallas is hoping that former 49ers quarterback Lance will be able to provide some helpful information on his former team.
Brian Schottenheimer, who is in his first season as Dallas’ offensive coordinator, was asked by reporters Monday whether he will pick Lance’s brain for insight on the Niners.
“Trey knows a little bit about what they’re doing,” Schottenheimer said Monday, via NBC Sports Bay Area’s Angela Martin. “The cool thing is, like I said, the [Cowboys] know them well, I know them well from being in Seattle, Trey knows them well. Like last week, it’s kind of in good fun and humor. We all use pieces that we have in place, but we don’t go too far into it.”
Though Lance might be able to share some of what the 49ers do and how the 49ers approached Dallas last season, that sort of insight might be overblown.
The New England Patriots have former Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott, but that didn’t help the AFC East team at all in an ugly 38-3 Week 4 loss to Dallas.
“We can know exactly what they’re going to do, because they don’t do too much, and they’re still really, really tough to go against just because they’re so talented. … We’ll definitely talk to Trey. He knows a lot of the pieces going against them in practice, but it doesn’t always help, as we learned yesterday,” Schottenheimer said, alluding to the Cowboys-Patriots result.
Players giving insight to their new teams regarding former teams is nothing new. The question is whether or not Lance will be able to give the Cowboys any meaningful information about San Francisco.
Even if he does, it might not matter too much against the 4-0 Niners. And yes, we were joking about the big price Dallas paid to acquire Lance.
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