How Trey Lance could move up the Dallas Cowboys depth chart in 2024

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Trey Lance‘s promising career may finally get some traction in 2024.

In 2023 Lance was either inactive or holding a clipboard.

However budgetary constraints and the promise of going all-in from Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones may work in Lance’s favour.

Where Lance currently sits on the Cowboys’ depth chart?

As things stand right now, the former North Dakota State product is third on the team’s quarterback depth chart behind Cooper Rush and Dak Prescott.

Only two seasons ago, Lance began the regular season as the starter in San Francisco.

The third overall pick in 2021 was expected to be the guy to lead the 49ers back to the promised land.

Unfortunately, his career took a turn for the worse in 2022, suffering a season-ending ankle injury in Week Two.

He never played another regular season game in San Francisco as Mr. Irrelevant Brock Purdy flourished in the spotlight, becoming their #1.

Lance went from third-stringer behind Purdy and Sam Darnold in San Fran before the 2023 campaign began, to #3 in Dallas when the Cowboys acquired him in exchange for a fourth-round pick.

What Lance did in college?

It may feel like a long time ago, but Trey Lance had a meteoric rise among quarterbacking prospects in college.

After being a redshirt in his first year at North Dakota State in 2018 when the Bisons were NCAA Division I champions, Lance became their starter the next year.

The Bisons continued their success with Lance at the controls, going 16-0 in 2019, with Lance being named Offensive Player of the Year and North Dakota State retaining their title.

He also won the Jerry Rice Award for outstanding freshman and the Walter Payton Award for outstanding offensive player that season.

Lance started one game in 2020 before the season’s cancellation because of COVID.

Before the season restarted Lance expressed his desire to enter the NFL draft.

Lance went 17-0 as a starter in college, completing 65.4% of his passes, throwing for 2,947 yards and 30 touchdowns with an overall rating of 173.8.

How Lance could move up the Cowboys’ depth chart

With so much attention around Dak Prescott, Micah Parsons and CeeDee Lamb, we may forget that other Cowboy players are slated to be out of contract by the end of the 2024 season.

One of those is backup quarterback Cooper Rush.

Rush filled in for the injured Prescott early into 2022, going 4-1 as a starter.

Per Spotrac he’ll be earning a base salary of over $2 million in 2024 with a cap hit of over $2.5 million.

Rush put together some solid performances in relief of Prescott and could have some value somewhere else.

On the other hand, cutting Rush would save Dallas around $2.3 million, which is not a lot, but every little bit helps.

If Jones is genuinely going to throw all his chips on the table and go after some big fish in free agency, cutting Rush may be beneficial.

Lance’s base salary in 2024 will be slightly above $1 million per Spotrac.

It’d be fair to say Lance has something to prove in the NFL, but through unfortunate circumstances, it’d also be fair to see he needs more time.

At the end of the day, he needs a break, and given his college resume and the Cowboys goals for 2024, it’d seem like a win-win to make Lance the backup next season.