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49ers Left Tackle Trent Williams is Likely Done for the Season

The 49ers seriously mismanaged Trent Williams this season.

Grant Cohn

Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Trent Williams (71) blocks Arizona Cardinals defensive tackle Naquan Jones (96) during the fourth quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Trent Williams (71) blocks Arizona Cardinals defensive tackle Naquan Jones (96) during the fourth quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
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SANTA CLARA -- The 49ers seriously mismanaged Trent Williams this season.

Williams most likely is out for the final three games with an ankle injury that just won't heal. "If he could get back to healthy, we’d play him," head coach Kyle Shanahan said. "But, it's not like that right now, so it's getting closer to being that way."

Williams originally injured his ankle Week 10 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The following week, he received a pain injection to play against the Seattle Seahawks, a game the 49ers ultimately lost. In that game, Williams further injured his ankle and hasn't played since.

"We felt safe putting him out there that it couldn't get worse," Shanahan explained. "It would just stay the same."

But it didn't stay the same. His ankle injury got worse. Which means the 49ers probably rushed Williams back too soon.

Williams, 36, held out of training camp this offseason because he wanted an extension, which the 49ers eventually gave to him. It was a 3-year, $82.66 million deal -- a ton of money for an offensive lineman who will be 38 when the deal is done. This season, Williams played in just 10 games before going down with his ankle injury.

Next season, the 49ers need to be more careful with Williams. He's their oldest and arguably most important player. Don't rush him back from injury. Don't ask him to take a pain injection to play through an injury in November.

Be smart.

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Grant Cohn
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.

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