Video: Mike Martz Goes Positively Scorched Earth in His Assessment of Trey Lance

Charles Rex Arbogast. Shutterstock Images.

The Ancient Romans, and people like me who try to use Latin phrases in order to sound learned to make up for the fact we went to Community College, had an expression: Ceteris paribus, literally "holding other things constant." Sort of a classier form of our "all else being equal." Well ceteris paribus, the Trey Lance situation in San Francisco is one of the most intriguing story lines of the 2022 season. It has been all year, and now that the games count, it's only more so. 

It's hard to overstate how much is riding on Lance's success. A franchise that almost won a Super Bowl and came within a win of going to another in the span of three years gambled three first round picks to draft the guy they think can take them a step further. Then kept the man he replaced around, just in case the gamble blows up in their face. Now the situation is such that Lance has to succeed soon, or risk losing his job. And if he lives up to his promise, contract extensions are being signed. If he doesn't a franchise that has been on the verge of a championship probably blows up the front office and starts over. So the stakes are, and I can't stress this enough, high.

With that, whether you're partial to Lance or on Team Garoppolo, you could give him a pass for playing through monsoon season in Chicago yesterday. 

But not everybody is. Former Rams head coach and the offensive coordinator of the 2008 49ers is giving Lance no slack whatsoever. In fact he's giving him nothing. Except a giant, party sub-sized shit sandwich. 

"He looked like a fullback stumbling around.” 

“I’ve never seen anything about this kid that was encouraging at all.” 

“He's not a great passer. Doesn’t have good skills, takes him a long time to set himself and throw the football. Misses easy throws and he’s not a particularly good runner. Other than that he’s a hell of a player.”

Holy Moses, that is brutal. I've seen victims of felony crimes in sentencing hearings be kinder toward the guilty party. C'mon, Martz. The man has a family! 

Between college and pros, Martz has 36 years of experience coaching offenses on his resume. So if he is this invested in tearing Lance's game apart, I wouldn't be feeling bullish on his future. Nor about the fact that, according to Pro Football Focus, through 15 games of the NFL season, Lance is currently dead last in Completion % (46.4%), next to last in passer rating (50.3) and next to last in overall grade (53.7).

Still, a reasonable person can look at the conditions he played in and give Lance a mulligan. At 71 years old and with no incentive mince words, Mike Martz is not holding back when it comes to taking a flamethrower to the guy his former team has pinned all their hopes for the future on. Now it just remains to be seen if other experts in the field of quarterbacking are going to be saying the same things.

If so, and Martz starts to have the majority opinion, Jimmy G better keep his helmet close by.