NFL Breaking News: Trey Lance Traded to the Dallas Cowboys
After Trey Lance was relegated to the third-string quarterback on the San Francisco 49ers behind Brock Purdy and Sam Darnold, we assumed there was going to be a possible trade in the works for Lance after GM John Lynch was set to “explore their options” for Lance and his NFL future, whether it was in San Francisco or elsewhere.
In 2023, there was just no place on the roster for Lance as Kyle Shanahan has committed his starting quarterback job, life and first two mortgages essentially to the seventh-round pick in last year’s NFL Draft. With that, the writing was on the wall for Lance. We’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop on a new landing spot, but we just didn’t know it would be THIS soon.
We now have our answer.
Trey Lance is a Dallas Cowboy, as Jerry Jones and the top brass in Dallas have sent a reported 2024 fourth-round pick in exchange for the former top-3 overall quarterback from the 2021 NFL Draft.
What is more surprising that the actual cost of trading for Lance is the teams that DIDN'T make this move, like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Atlanta Falcons, and my personal preferred landing spot, the Minnesota Vikings. Kirk Cousins is in the last year of his contract and could have been a nice bridge to a young quarterback with upside to see if he's the guy and then if not, go back into the NFL Draft pool to find a quarterback.
Let’s just say that the Cowboys were NOT in Britt Flinn’s top trade destinations for Lance. How does this move affect fantasy football ADP, and does it make any noise in fantasy football rankings leading up to Week 1?
Trey Lance Fantasy Football Impact
The fantasy football impact is minimal at best, and this trade shouldn’t move any needle in season-long redraft or best ball formats. The only way he’s getting on the field is with a Dak Prescott injury, and that’s not even a certainty with Cooper Rush still in the fold.
Trey Lance has played in just eight games in his career, started four of them, and left injured in two of them. The thesis of the Lance play has always been athleticism and what he can do to stress defenses with his arm and rushing ability. The operating word here is “can” because he clearly hasn’t shown enough of either ability to be in the plans for the 49ers, so after sending multiple first-round selections to move up in the 2021 NFL Draft to draft him, the 49ers are washing their hands of him for a fourth-round pick. Could the Cowboys get anything out of Lance to provide real, actual value? Well, it cost a Day 3 draft pick, so the cost isn't too much to at least keep him stashed.
Could Lance be an eventual option for the Cowboys in the long term? The Cowboys could cut Dak Prescott as a post-June 1st release that will save approximately $34 million ($25m dead cap) and could pave the way for Lance as the Cowboys quarterback in 2024.
That does seem like a rather implausible scenario, but it’s surely a non-0% outcome, considering the Cowboys were willing to part with a 2024 fourth-round pick for Lance.
Lance is currently going undrafted in most formats as the aggregate QB38 across multiple sites like Underdog, Yahoo, FFPC, RTSports, and NFFC. It would take an injury for Lance even to be a blip on the radar, and again, it wouldn’t even be guaranteed with Cooper Rush still on the roster and ingrained as the backup quarterback in Dallas. If you still roster him in dynasty formats, you have to either trade him for pennies on the dollar or just eat the cost and maybe try to coax a third-round rookie draft pick out of a dynasty manager who is still optimistic, i.e. a Cowboys fan.
NFL Links:
- 2023 FANTASY FOOTBALL DRAFT GUIDE
- 2023 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet
- 2023 NFL Pre-Season Player Projections
- 2023 Fantasy Football Position Rankings
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