John Lynch: 49ers 'more excited about' Trey Lance now 'than when we drafted him'

San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch, CEO Jed York and head coach Kyle Shanahan all insisted during the spring and summer months that veteran quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo would start over rookie Trey Lance even though the Niners moved up in the 2021 NFL Draft ultimately to acquire the North Dakota State Bison signal-caller with the third overall pick. 

Outside of instances when Garoppolo was injured, Lance remained a spectator for the bulk of his debut pro season and will again be QB2 when San Francisco begins Sunday's wild-card playoff game at the Dallas Cowboys. Per David Bonilla of 49ers WebZone, Lynch appeared on local sports radio station 95.7 The Game on Friday morning and left no doubt the organization is committed to Lance eventually sitting atop the depth chart. 

"The thing I'll tell you about Trey—we're more excited about him today than when we drafted him," Lynch explained. "And that's because of the amount of horsepower that he has. When you're trying to find a franchise quarterback, you're looking at everything. You're looking at competitive greatness, about when the moment's big, how are they going to respond? You're talking about the physical traits and tools. He's got all of those."

Lynch also touched upon Garoppolo serving as a mentor for the first-year pro who, by all accounts, will eventually replace him as San Francisco's starter. 

"And it's been awesome to watch Jimmy and Trey develop their relationship, and I give Jimmy all the credit for that because it would be easy to say, 'Get out of my room.' Instead, he's done nothing but help the kid," Lynch remarked. "It's been awesome, and I think that's kind of representative of the feel that this team has for each other. We all have each others' backs. That's what makes you feel so confident going into this playoff run."

Garoppolo enters the postseason tournament banged up and carrying a reported Grade 3 sprain of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb and chipped bone, so Lance could be called into duty as soon as Sunday if Jimmy G is ineffective or if his injury worsens.