Dallas Cowboys quarterback Trey Lance got the nod in his team’s regular season finale on Sunday.
With the Cowboys already eliminated from playoff contention and QB1 Dak Prescott out for the season, head coach Mike McCarthy decided to start Lance under center against the postseason-bound Washington Commanders.
The shock decision came at the expense of backup QB Cooper Rush, who was benched and ultimately denied a $500,000 contract incentive for playing in 55 percent of the team’s offensive snaps.
The decision to start Lance was all the more surprising given the former No. 3 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, is, in many ways, the league’s forgotten man.
The 24-year-old joined the Cowboys via trade from the San Francisco 49ers in August 2023. He didn’t get any playing time last year and headed into Week 18 contest with the Commanders having only thrown seven passes at the end of two blowouts this season.
NFL legend Shannon Sharpe reacted to the Cowboys’ decision to start Lance on his ‘Nightcap’ podcast ahead of the Commanders game.
The three-time Super Bowl winner asked if this was the last dance for Lance, to which co-host Chad ‘Ochocinco’ Johnson said not.
“Well, right now he can’t play dead in a horror movie,” Sharpe joked.
“Oh, I’ll get him at chance, man,” Johnson replied.
“Listen, there are far off worst quarterbacks that have backup roles and sometimes third-string roles in the NFL. Trey Lance is a good quarterback if in the right situation.
“But what I think he can do is he can put up a good performance where he signs back with the Cowboys and he can be the number two behind Dak Prescott.”
“Right now, Ocho, he is a dual threat,” Sharpe interjected. “He’s terrible and awful. That’s the dual threat [Cowboys owner Jerry Jones] was talking about.”
Lance initially sat his rookie season for veteran Jimmy Garoppolo in 2021.
He became the QB1 in 2022 but suffered a season-ending ankle injury in his second game. In the second half of the season, the Niners turned to Brock Purdy, who has remained the team’s QB1 ever since.
“‘Mr. Irrelevant’ [Purdy] beat him out for the job,” Sharpe added. “The last player selected in the draft, Ocho, beat him, the number three pick.
Sharpe and Ocho then reflected on Lance’s age, with the latter insisting the young signal caller was still going to be around the league for the foreseeable future.
“Be around what? Coaching?” Sharpe joked.
“Ocho, they ain’t going to give you that many more opportunities,” he went on.
“This is Trey Lance’s opportunity to show that he has something.
“Obviously he showed something in the draft process.
“He got really hurt by that Covid season. He played at a football subdivision, which is the level right below 1A. And then he only had one year starting. And then Covid came and then he sat out that year.
“That’s not a whole lot of play time, especially not playing at a very high level. And so I think that hurt him a lot. But he had to show enough to that team.
“I mean, the 49ers weren’t the only team that thought he had a high draft rate.
“So I hope he goes out there and shows something. Because there ain’t so many more opportunities that you can get before they’re like, ‘you know what? My man just ain’t got it.’
“But this is his opportunity. Hey, he’s playing for a job.
“Good luck, Trey.”
Lance had thrown just 109 passes and rushed 59 times in four years heading into the Week 18 game against Washington.
However, he apparently heard the critics and put in a stellar performance Sunday, completing 20-of-34 passes for 244 yards while rushing for 26 yards on six carries in the 23-19 loss.
He still had some missteps, but overall it was a solid outing for Lance, who was making his first start since Week 2 of the 2022 season, when he played for the 49ers.
Asked after the game if his performance was a great representation of what he can be in the NFL, Lance replied: “Absolutely.
“Any time I get the opportunity to play another team starting, it’s something that I want to do and put good stuff on tape. I’m excited to go home and watch it tonight. [Going to] learn a lot from it, some good things and some bad things, but a ton to learn.”
Lance will be a free agent in 2025, so his future is unknown.
However, he at least now enters the offseason with a decent sample reel to show prospective teams what he can do when the ball is put in his hands.
“Just an opportunity, that’s the biggest thing,” he said of his impending free agency.
“Just looking for an opportunity. We’ll see what happens. I haven’t got into the whole free agency thing or anything like that, but I know it’s going to be months around the corner. I’m going to take this and enjoy this day. Going to take some time to reflect on how grateful I am for the time that I spent here.”
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