There hasn't been much for Trey Lance to celebrate over the past few seasons.
That changed a bit on Saturday.
Having struggled in the Dallas Cowboys' Week 1 preseason game, Lance showed vast improvement when he helped his squad to a 27-12 win over the host Las Vegas Raiders, tallying two total touchdowns.
"When you stand up here and you talk about your quarterback running the offense, the pace of operation, those are steps that every quarterback has to take," Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said after the game, via The Associated Press. "And I thought our tempo was really good tonight. We were getting into the huddle and he was commanding. He saw plenty of pressure. ... I thought we saw a good amount of pressure ... so really good experience for him tonight."
To Lance's credit, he wasn't beaming about his performance, but rather a sign of improvement and a testament that plenty of maturation still needs to be made.
"Definitely, felt more comfortable coming out," Lance said. "Would have liked to start a little bit faster in the third quarter, for sure. The whole entire third quarter, left some plays out there, for sure. But excited to watch the tape. Learned a lot again from it, and it was fun to compete with these guys."
Cooper Rush got the start for the Cowboys with Lance coming on in relief and playing a full three quarters.
Lance was 15 of 23 for 151 passing yards, a 1-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Flournoy, no interceptions, a 98.3 QB rating, and 34 yards rushing on seven carries, which included a 20-yard run and a 2-yard TD in the fourth quarter.
In comparison, Lance's preseason Week 1 performance -- his first game action since the 2023 preseason with the San Francisco 49ers -- saw him go 25 of 41 for 188 yards, no TDs, no INTs, a 72.0 rating, and 44 yards on six carries against the Los Angeles Rams.
It still seems unlikely Lance has done enough at this point to unseat Rush as the Cowboys' QB2, but he clearly took a scramble in the right direction against the Raiders.
"I feel good," Lance said via the Cowboys’ team website. "I'm glad we got the win. I think that's the most important thing to me. I'm gonna watch the tape and learn from it and do the same exact thing next week."
Dallas' preseason finale is Saturday against the visiting Los Angeles Chargers.
