Kyle Shanahan thinks the Cowboys listening to Trey Lance’s ‘insights’ could be a big mistake

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Earlier this week, it was reported that the Cowboys would be speaking to Trey Lance for ‘insights’ ahead of facing his former team. However, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan thinks that could be an oversight.

The biggest game of the weekend pits the Dallas Cowboys up against the undefeated San Francisco 49ers. The Cowboys have come unstuck against the 49ers in the last two postseasons, and while they have one of the best defenses in the league, the Niners happen to have one of the most potent offenses, spearheaded by MVP favorite Christian McCaffrey.

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Kyle Shanahan thinks the Cowboys listening to Trey Lance’s ‘insights’ could be a big oversight

The matchup will see quarterback Trey Lance return to San Francisco for the first time since his trade. The 49ers traded the former first-round pick to the Cowboys in late August after an underwhelming first two years in the league.

Earlier this week, Dallas offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer told reporters he intended to speak to Lance to gain possible insights about the 49ers ahead of the game.

However, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan appears to be actively hoping for that to happen, and thinks doing so could be a big oversight.

During his Wednesday press conference, Shanahan was asked how much Lance could realistically reveal about the 49ers’ offense.

He replied: “As much as most coaches can. You can see the plays on tape, you can explain what we look at and stuff like that, which usually you can when you can stack up a lot of tape over years, and we’ve been here for a while and previous.

“So hopefully he’s talking to him all the time and making them focus totally on that instead of the simple stuff of watching the tape.”

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Schottenheimer on speaking to Lance ahead of the Week 5 showdown

Shanahan’s response comes after Schottenheimer’s comments earlier in the week. At the time the Cowboys were coming off a blowout win against the Patriots and former Dallas running back Ezekiel Elliott.

The Dallas offensive coordinator is well aware that ‘insider’ insights from former players can have little impact on a game, but still said he intended to speak to Lance.

“Trey knows a little bit about what they’re doing,” Schottenheimer said, smiling. “The cool thing is, like I said, the [Cowboys] know them well. I know them well from being in Seattle. Trey knows them well. Like last week, it’s kind of in good fun and humor. We all use pieces that we have in place, but we don’t go too far into it.

“We can know exactly what they’re going to do, because they don’t do too much, and they’re still really, really tough to go against just because they’re so talented.”

He added, “We’ll definitely talk to Trey. He knows a lot of the pieces going against them in practice, but it doesn’t always help, as we learned yesterday.”

49ers defensive end laughs off notion of ‘insider’ information

Ultimately, Lance’s history with the Niners is unlikely to have any bearing on Sunday’s result. The 23-year-old is currently the No. 3 quarterback in Dallas, behind Dak Prescott and Cooper Rush, and is yet to feature at all this season.

Any potential insights he can offer are largely overstated. With that in mind, 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa isn’t concerned about what his former teammate may reveal.

When asked about the two team knowing each other’s game plan, Bosa laughed: “They have Trey, so I’m sure they have an idea.”

“I think the NFL is a copycat league and everybody knows pretty much everything,” he added. “Obviously, game-plan stuff they won’t know and we won’t know, so there’ll be some surprises.”