CANTON, Ohio — Trey Lance welcomes any opportunity that comes his way — a vexing four NFL seasons have only made him more eager — so Thursday night felt especially good.
Lance, the onetime third overall pick of the San Francisco 49ers, is battling for the Chargers’ backup quarterback job, and he made a compelling case in the Hall of Fame Game against the NFC darling Detroit Lions.
Although he didn’t put up gaudy numbers — completing 13 of 20 passes for 120 yards and two touchdowns — he was as relaxed and at ease in front of the crowd of 18,144 at Tom Benson Stadium, as refreshing as the gentle evening breeze after a day of sprinkling rain.
“I was excited that we got this fourth preseason game,” Lance said after the 34-7 victory. “If I could play four games I’d be fired up about that.”
Lance, competing with Taylor Heinicke for the backup job to Justin Herbert, is on his third NFL team since being drafted in 2021. He was sidelined by injuries with the 49ers, then unseated by Brock Purdy. After that, Lance was a third-stringer for two seasons in Dallas. And keep in mind, he only played one full season at North Dakota State.
NFL analyst Sam Monson crunched the numbers and came up with this forehead-slapping stat: Lance has thrown a total of 781 pass attempts since he was 16. Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, for instance, had 664 last season alone.
“He had the same kind of composure and poise and was just in control,” Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said of Lance after the game. “There’s a presence that I’ve been seeing all camp. He’s had a heck of a camp, and then he went out in the game and did that. Just the feeling of — he needs game reps, and you know he’s going to get them. It’s a great start for him tonight.”
Chargers quarterback Trey Lance passes in the first half of the Hall of Fame Game on Thursday.
(David Richard / Associated Press)
As for that relatively minuscule number of pass attempts since high school?
Lance just turned 25 in May.
“Gosh, to be 25 again,” the coach said. “Wow, that’s the fat part of the bat, you know, for a quarterback. Excited about where he’s headed, happy to be in the middle of that story too. Just keep rolling. More reps next week.”
Here are five observations from the Chargers’ preseason opener:
In the slang, “mid” means disappointingly mediocre, forgettable, uninspiring. On TikTok, a classic rant starts: “It’s called the Midwest because everything in it is mid! Skyline Chili? Mid! Your Cincinnati Reds, who haven’t won a World Series since 1990? M-M-M-Mid!!!”
Today, the Reds are five games over .500, and one of four teams that appear to be competing for the three National League wild-card spots. They added a starting pitcher, an elite defensive third baseman and a veteran utilityman batting .298 ahead of Thursday’s trade deadline.
They are three games under .500, four games out in the American League wild-card race, with four teams to pass, hoping to end baseball’s longest playoff drought at 10 years.
The Seattle Mariners, tied with the Texas Rangers for the final wild-card spot, traded for middle-of-the-lineup corner infielders in third baseman Eugenio Suárez and first baseman Josh Naylor. The Rangers acquired Merrill Kelly to supplement Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi atop the starting rotation.
The Angels made two trades, picking up two veteran setup men and an infielder batting .152 for three lightly regarded minor leaguers.
Why lightly bolster a team with a 1.3% chance of making the playoffs, as projected by Baseball Prospectus before Thursday’s trades, when you could start building the 2026 roster in the many areas needing improvement?
“Giving them a chance to play this thing out, relative to what was presented [in trade talks], made a lot of sense,” Angels general manager Perry Minasian said.
In large part, he said, this was about the young players.
“The development of our core is obviously very, very, very important,” Minasian said. “Being competitive in August and September is really, really important for this group, not only for the now but for the future — playing meaningful games, understanding there is an expectation to win, showing up to the ballpark every day feeling like you have a chance to win over a six-month period.
“It’s hard to quantify, but I felt like it was very important for this group to go through that, to see what playing in August demands, what playing in September is like.”
Does he see the 2025 Angels playing meaningful games in October?
“I don’t make predictions,” he said.
Beyond shortstop Zach Neto, no one on the Angels’ current roster was likely to command an elite prospect in return.
Yet the Angels could have traded soon-to-be free agents such as pitchers Kenley Jansen and Tyler Anderson, or infielders Yoan Moncada and Luis Rengifo, to fill 2026 needs: a back-end starter, bullpen help, a utility infielder, a defense-first outfielder, upper-level depth in the minor leagues.
Maybe Oswald Peraza, the once-hyped New York Yankees prospect with the .152 average, starts at third base next year, or secures that utility job. Minasian called him “a classic change-of-scenery guy.”
To get him, however, the Angels surrendered $73,766 in international bonus pool money that could have been better used to sign Latin American prospects. Minasian said the Angels had used what they needed of their $6,261,600 pool they needed this year — and the better prospects cost much more than $73,766 — but they cannot afford to close any avenues for talent acquisition.
But the Dodgers spend whatever they need, and then some, on deep and talented rosters of players, coaches and executives, and on player development and player acquisition.
It’s not all about money. It’s about creativity too. The Dodgers inserted themselves into a three-team trade Wednesday to bolster their farm system by trading a surplus minor league catcher for two minor league pitchers. The Dodgers last year inserted themselves into another three-team trade to grab reliever Michael Kopech, then-injured Tommy Edman for a depth bat and two minor leaguers.
The last time the Angels were a party to a three-team deal, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman facilitated that too. The Dodgers got four players from the Miami Marlins, then swapped pitcher Andrew Heaney to the Angels for infielder Howie Kendrick. That was in 2014.
The Angels these days do not spend as much, or as well, on free agents. They do not distinguish themselves in scouting, analytics, player development or international signings.
The Angels have their kids, but the optimism inherent in their talk of a young core obscures the fact they are about to have to pay the kids — and, money aside, they are running out of time.
Shortstop Zach Neto has emerged as a young star for the Angels, who are fighting for a wild-card playoff spot this season.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
Neto, the lone star to emerge so far from the young core, is eligible for salary arbitration this winter. The Angels control him for only three more seasons — maybe less, if some or all of the 2027 season is lost to a collective bargaining war.
Catcher Logan O’Hoppe and pitcher José Soriano also are eligible for arbitration this winter. First baseman Nolan Schanuel is eligible next winter.
In the big picture, nothing much changed Thursday. The plan today is the same as it was in spring training: hope enough young players blossom that, when Anthony Rendon’s contract expires next fall, Minasian can persuade owner Arte Moreno that spending big on one or two players in free agency could make the difference. If playing meaningful games this August makes those young players that much better, perhaps this trade deadline was worth it.
Moreno resists rebuilding, as an advocate for fans he believes deserve to see a competitive team. No one in Orange County has to watch what something akin to what the Colorado Rockies are offering — or what the Houston Astros were offering before their ongoing run of success. Rebuilding could mean 100-loss seasons and an even greater drop in attendance; competing could mean sneaking into the playoffs with 84 victories.
The Angels could do that this year. It could work. However, it has not worked over the last decade, and in the meantime the Angels have become an unwitting poster child for a players’ union fighting against a salary cap to say, “Market size is not destiny. Look at the Angels.”
You can say the game plan is to contend every year, in the interest of the fans, but you should not try to win every year on a wing and a prayer.
Your most dedicated fans — represented by the hundreds that decorated themselves in wings and halos at Wednesday’s game, flapping their arms as angels in the outfield — were not shy about letting their feelings be known.
You could hear them loud and clear, at the game and on the television broadcast, “Sell the team!”
