SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Trey Lance caught a football, flipped to him from across the room inside Levi’s Stadium, and he worked a grip on it to try to relive how he had to hold it a little more than a year ago just to have a prayer of throwing it. His index finger was almost to the nose of the ball, his middle finger off the laces and his ring finger sitting over and between the first and second cross-laces.
It’s not how anyone would tell a quarterback to do it. But Lance had no choice.
Even more remarkable? He didn’t have much to say about it back then, either—really to anyone. So as his rookie year went up and down, as it looked like his cannon of a right arm might be wearing out, as it might’ve seemed to some like he was shot-putting the ball in games, Lance knew what was wrong. He had a broken finger, with damaged ligaments, and even if excuses would’ve saved him some criticism and grief, he wasn’t about to make any.
