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."

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 spotlight

Two of Lance's more memorable passes were to fifth-round pick KeAndre Lambert-Smith, who had a 28-yard reception on third down and a 15-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter. There's plenty of opportunity for a young receiver to step up for the Chargers, and Lambert-Smith is doing that so far.

First-round pick Omarion Hampton got two carries early in the game, one of them for an eight-yard gain. On the other, though, he tried to bounce outside in the red zone and couldn't elude cornerback Rock Ya-Sin, who took him out with an ankle tackle.

Although Lance played most of the game for the Chargers, DJ Uiagalelei, the five-star quarterback who played at St. John Bosco High, got some snaps as well.

Reed and react

Chargers rookie cornerback Nikko Reed made a beautiful play in the first quarter, jumping an out-route by Detroit receiver Tom Kennedy and picking off an Allen pass. Reed, an undrafted free agent who played at Colorado and Oregon, then tore off a 46-yard return down the sideline.

A week earlier, Reed had a pick-six in practice, and has made positive plays in virtually every session.

"I would say [consistency] is probably the most impressive," Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter told reporters earlier in the week in reference to Reed. "The old adage is, 'Make a play a day and people will start to know who you are.'

"Especially if you're undrafted, it's like how do you get people in the building, organization to really remember who that guy is? You make a play every day."

Getting a jump

It looked at times as if the right side of the Chargers line was firing off early, although that wasn't necessarily reflected in the penalty count. That was an area in which the team excelled last season. After some early issues, the Chargers were disciplined and didn't commit a lot of presnap penalties.

The 2024 Chargers averaged 0.89 false starts per game, tying them for fourth-fewest in the NFL.

Zion Johnson, a guard who has been rotating in at center, struggled getting off clean snaps early in the game, but Harbaugh has high hopes for him.

"He'd never played center," the coach said. "It's been an offseason project while still doing his guard duties. He's probably our most athletic lineman, maybe our smartest. ... I don't know if anybody wants it more than him. That's how driven he is."

Chain reaction

Chain gangs will still have a role in NFL games, but virtual measurements are gradually being embraced.

The league officially unveiled its virtual measurement system, which will be used in the regular season for the first time and is aimed at reducing delays and improving consistency on first-down rulings. It was in place last year but only as a test.

Chain gangs will still be in place for backup measurements, if necessary.

While officials will still spot the ball and determine forward progress, the virtual system relies on six 8K Sony Hawk-Eye cameras to track the precise position of the football relative to the line to gain.

The NFL's football operations department said the average line-to-gain measurement takes 75 seconds with human officials, whereas the Hawk-Eye system can do it in 30 seconds. Across the league, officials made an average of 12 such measurements a week.

One for the ages

The Hall of Fame Game is merely a prelude to the main event of the weekend, Saturday's induction of the 2025 class.

Among those players is Chargers great Antonio Gates, the only Hall of Fame player to never play a snap of college football. He was a basketball star just up the road at Kent State, and wound up becoming the NFL's all-time touchdown leader for tight ends.

That feat, to go from no college ball to the pinnacle of the game, is stunning to so many, including fellow 2025 inductee Sterling Sharpe.

"Like everything in life, the way we were taught is that you have to learn to follow before you can lead," Sharpe said. "You've got to learn to go through the step of disappointment of not being a running back but being a safety, not being a quarterback but being a receiver …

"For him to go from basketball into football at that level and end up in the Hall of Fame? I can't articulate that. It's tremendous."

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