DETROIT — Trey Lance’s first career touchdown: a pass, not a run. It came on his first regular-season pass as an NFL player, too.
Lance produced the 49ers’ first touchdown of the season when he completed a 5-yard, play-action pass to Trent Sherfield for a 7-0 lead against the host Lions.
But Lance didn’t do so in a starting role.
As expected, Jimmy Garoppolo made his fourth consecutive season-opening start, and it was Garoppolo who kept alive that opening touchdown drive with a third-down conversion pass to Mohamed Sanu to the 5-yard line, setting up Lance’s scoring strike on the next snap.
Lance actually replaced Garoppolo twice on that seven-play, 59-yard drive. Three snaps before his touchdown toss, Lance made his official NFL debut (1:22 p.m. ET) with a 1-yard run off right guard.
That scoring drive helped the 49ers make amends for their opening-snap snafu, when Garoppolo fumbled Alex Mack’s first snap as the 49ers’ new center.
The 49ers showed the Garoppolo-Lance rotation in their preseason finale against the Raiders two weeks ago, and that’s where Lance came in and ran for a touchdown on a zone-read play.
6 points for the new guys 🙌@treylance09 x @Channel_10
📺 #SFvsDET on FOX pic.twitter.com/sCTf65lfav
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) September 12, 2021
