49ers Acquire LT Trent Williams from Washington in Trade

The San Francisco 49ers acquired left tackle Trent Williams in a trade with the Washington Redskins.

Grant Cohn | Apr 25, 2020

The 49ers may have just acquired Joe Staley's heir apparent at left tackle.

Saturday morning, the 49ers acquired veteran left tackle Trent Williams in a trade with the Washington Redskins in exchange for a fifth-round pick this year and a third-round pick in 2021, according to the NFL Network.

Trent Williams, 31, played for 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan from 2010 to 2013 when Shanahan was Washington's offensive coordinator. Shanahan's father, Mike Shanahan, drafted Williams with the fourth pick in the 2010 draft.

Williams went to Oklahoma and is a specialist in the zone-blocking scheme which the 49ers offense features. He is an elite left tackle and franchise cornerstone when healthy. But he will be a free agent after the upcoming season.

Williams sat out the 2019 season over a contract dispute with the Redskins, who have been trying unsuccessfully to trade Williams since the trade deadline of last season. Finally, Washington found a partner.

The 49ers traded for Williams because Staley will retire, according to Adam Schefter. Staley will turn 36 in August and got injured twice in 2019. Now the 49ers have his replacement.

Staley was the 28th pick in the 2007 NFL Draft. Last June, he signed a two-year contract extension through 2021, but there have been rumors all offseason that he could abruptly retire.

As a result of this trade, the 49ers have just two draft picks remaining this year: A sixth-rounder (210) and a seventh-rounder (217). The 49ers traded a first-, a fourth- and a fifth-rounder on Thursday to the Vikings in exchange for a pick the 49ers used to take Arizona State wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk.

Published Apr 25, 2020

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.