Could Trey Lance help Cowboys defeat 49ers?

San Francisco 49ers superstar pass-rusher Nick Bosa sounds unconcerned about former teammate Trey Lance possibly helping the 3-1 Dallas Cowboys defeat the 4-0 49ers at Levi's Stadium this coming Sunday night. 

"I think the NFL is a copycat league, and everybody knows pretty much everything," Bosa told reporters on Wednesday, per David Bonilla of 49ers WebZone. "But obviously game plan stuff, they won't know, and we won't know, so there'll be some surprises."

49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch made Lance the third overall pick of the 2021 NFL Draft and the quarterback began last season as San Francisco's Week 1 starter before he suffered a campaign-ending ankle injury in Week 2. While Brock Purdy became a rookie sensation beginning in December, Lance required multiple surgeries and ultimately lost the starting job to Purdy. 

Shanahan then relegated Lance to third on the depth chart beneath free-agency signing Sam Darnold this past preseason before San Francisco traded the 23-year-old in late August. According to Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk, Cowboys offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer suggested earlier this week he'd use Lance as a resource ahead of the upcoming "Sunday Night Football" encounter involving the pair of Super Bowl hopefuls. 

"I mean, you can see the plays on tape," Shanahan said Wednesday about any advantage Lance could give the Cowboys. "You can explain what we look at and stuff like that, which usually you can when you can stack up a lot of tape over years, and we've been here for a while, and previous [to Lance being drafted]. So hopefully, he's talking to them all the time and making them focus totally on that instead of the simple stuff of watching the tape."

Lance is third on Dallas' depth chart and, thus, won't be eligible to play against his former employer this Sunday unless starter Dak Prescott and primary backup Cooper Rush both become unavailable during the game. That reality may not prevent Lance from getting some revenge on the 49ers assuming he's able to share useful information with Dallas coaches through Sunday night.