49ers left tackle Trent Williams didn’t sound committed to playing football for the 2023 season when he spoke with reporters Tuesday during the team’s locker room availability. Kyle Shanahan isn’t worried about having to replace his left tackle though.
Williams didn’t exactly hint at retirement, but just a couple days removed from a second-consecutive NFC championship game loss, the 34-year-old offensive lineman didn’t confirm he’d be back.
“You do get to that age, especially at the end the year like this, as exhausting as it was,” Williams said via Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle. “And still not getting quite where you want to be. I get it. You get to that age, But, honestly, I’m just taking it one day at time and we’ll see how that goes going forward.”
Part of the issue for Williams is generating excitement to play another season and get back on what he called a redundant day-to-day grind.
“But I’m blessed,” Williams added via the SF Chronicle. “I’m blessed to have played this game for as long as I have. And whatever God has in the future for me, I know I’ll have it. But to answer your question, yeah, it does get a little like a rerun almost.”
Despite semi-veiled language from Williams, Shanahan didn’t sound concerned. He attributed it to the interview coming within such close proximity to the season coming to an end.
“Yeah, I do, but if everyone had to do a press conference and talk for a while after these games, I’m sure we’d say a lot of things that didn’t tell you guys exactly everything that’s going to happen for the next eight months,” Shanahan told reporters in a press conference Wednesday. “But I didn’t read his words as that’s a big thing for him. I know Trent loves football. I know it’s very hard at his age, in any situation to do what you do for that long and come up short, but I’d be really surprised if Trent wasn’t fired up in a few weeks.”
Williams in 2021 signed a six-year, $138,060,000 deal with the 49ers. He has four years left on that deal, and he’ll have to decide by April 1 whether to opt in to the final three years of the contract, which run from 2024 through 2026 and guarantee him $10 million.
The 49ers have to hope Shanahan’s assumptions are correct. They got lucky once landing Williams in a trade shortly before long-time LT Joe Staley officially retired during the 2020 NFL draft. Finding a player to replace Williams would quickly become their most important, difficult task of the offseason.
