Wednesday's news that Trey Lance has lost the battle to be the 49ers' backup quarterback would appear to spell the end of his time with the team.

But head coach Kyle Shanahan insisted that is not necessarily the case.

As it stands Lance is the 49ers' third-string quarterback after the Niners elected to go with Darnold as starter Brock Purdy's immediate deputy.

But, even amid reports that said the Niners are "exploring their options" with Lance, that doesn't mean the Niners are giving up on the man they acquired with the third overall pick in 2021, having traded three first-round choices to move up to that slot.

To the contrary, their head coach is hopeful of keeping Lance around, with Shanahan telling KNBR:

"This isn’t a thing that we’re giving up on Trey. This is more of how Brock played in his seven games and that was decided before the season started, and then how good Sam’s looked, they’ve both looked good, but we do have to make a decision here, and you only get so many reps at it, we feel starting about 10 days ago, Sam really separated himself, we’ve got to keep it real in that way. But I feel very very fortunate to have both of them here, I really hope when it’s said and done that all three of these guys are here and you never know when that’s gonna come up, we needed four guys last year, doesn’t happen much but if we can have Trey as an option here, I would feel extremely happy about that and I think the other quarterbacks in our room would and I think our team would."

While Shanahan is seemingly keen to keep Lance around as his QB3 having seen the 49ers finish the NFC Championship Game without a healthy signal-caller due to injuries to all four of the players they used under center, he has to be realistic about the possibility of retaining Lance.

There's at least a decent chance Lance will not want to stay on a team with whom his path to a starting job and the reps he so desperately needs is reliant on a pair of quarterback injuries.

More importantly, the 49ers will likely want to recoup something for Lance after surrendering so much draft capital to land him.

And Shanahan seemingly understands that, for all the good will, a mutual separation could end up being best for both.

He added:

"Trey’s a very well-liked guy, one of the better people I’ve been around and I do think he’s going to have a lot of success in this league, it’s been a tough road for him because the times he has got an opportunity, he ended up getting hurt and missed that window and now he’s in this position, we’ll always try to do right for Trey. If there’s a better situation that his heart’s in, we’re going to make sure not to do something that hurts him in that way, that’s stuff that I talked to him about this morning, stuff that I’ll talk to him about tonight and continue to talk to him about but Trey knows how I feel about him and I hope he ends being able to be here and that’s the best thing for him. We’ve got to see what is the best thing from now until then."

There should be motivation on the part of both team and player to find Lance a new destination. Unless more severe quarterback adversity befalls the 49ers, a parting of ways appears inevitable. It's a question of when, not if.

Trey Lance absent from 49ers practice after losing backup QB job

Talk of a trade will only grow.

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