McCarthy Scouts Trey Lance in Debut: 'Good Football!'

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Trey Lance is officially underway in his 2024 preparations as he played the majority of the Cowboys' 13-12 preseason loss to the Los Angeles Rams.

With most of the build-up centered around how many thought Lance would look in Mike McCarthy's vanilla "Texas Coast Offense," in truth, Lance was rather vanilla at best.

Now, that's to be expected when you haven't played "real" football for the best part of a year, but for McCarthy, there was a lot of good to come out of Lance's game against the Rams.

“Good football,” McCarthy said of Lance. “Just the fact [to] get out there and play, let's be honest, I think it that gets lost in the preparation of all this; it's exciting to go play in a football game. We were all excited, obviously he was, too, so I just think all the things that lead into it you can see the work paid off.

"He was clearly prepared, I think the way he saw the game, the communication, way he ran the huddle, pre-snap penalties I think we had one. So that part was really good. He just needs a play. There's some things footwork-wise he'll be better. It's the first time not only for him this year ...''

So there were some good things, like Lance's ability to use his legs to pick up first downs as he totaled 44 yards from six carries, and while some throws were just missed (Princeton Fant wide open in the end zone) and a fourth-down throw to Jalen Cropper that was simply missed, Lance is still very much a work in progress.

And that is fine, as long as you are under no illusions about where Lance is in his development. After all, it was only one preseason game and Lance's first in over 12 months, so naturally, there would be some ups and downs throughout the game.

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But for McCarthy, there's clearly enough to work with to be bullish on Trey, and with the Cowboys facing the Las Vegas Raiders in their second preseason game, it will be interesting to see how Lance improves in the space of a week.

The QB2 position still feels like a long shot for Lance, but he's got two weeks to close the gap on Cooper Rush.