Your daily San Francisco 49ers news for Saturday, May 20th, 2023
49ers’ Trey Lance made ‘substantial jump’ working alongside Patrick Mahomes (paywall)
“In a phone interview with The Athletic this week, Christensen said Lance’s biggest breakthrough came when he stood behind his most famous client, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and watched him throw…..Asked if Lance has had any soreness issues since the 49ers offseason program began in mid-April, Christensen said, “zero.”
The issues with Lance’s throwing motion initially were substantial. Christensen said it usually takes him a day to diagnose what’s wrong with a quarterback’s delivery. With Lance, it took four days. But once he figured out the root cause, there was steady progress. Lance’s accuracy improved, the spin on the ball increased and the delivery time became shorter.”
Exploring Brayden Willis’ serendipitous 49ers connection, found in Oklahoma (paywall)
“It was me, Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker in the room,” Finley said. “One of those guys does not fit the others’ descriptions. Those guys were unbelievable players. I was just a guy that practiced hard and got to learn from a lot of good guys.”… Oklahoma’s staff learned that deploying Willis on option routes maximized his efficiency as a receiver. Increasing choices at the line of scrimmage make for a heavier mental burden, but the 49ers appreciated that Willis was not overwhelmed by it. Instead, he leveraged his route-running options into greater productivity.
“Think about Jason Witten and his option routes, but just doing that at different depths and different situations,” Finley said. “Brayden’s really good side-to-side, changing direction, basketball quickness. That’s what works on those linebackers in third-down situations. Freeing him up to have those options instead of making him run a certain route where if you have bad leverage, he can be taken away. If you give him options and just let the quarterback drop back and throw it to him, he’s going to have a great chance to get open unless you double cover.”
““I want Brandon Aiyuk, Christian McCaffrey, the Deebo Samuels, I want these guys to be like, ‘Man, Fred and them have just been beating us up all camp, we’re ready for whatever now.’ “
Arik Armstead: 49ers QB Brock Purdy has ‘that gunslinger mentality’
““Brock has a certain presence about himself that gives you confidence. He just has that gunslinger mentality, able to make plays off-script.”