The Exact Moment Trent Williams Injured His Ankle Against the Packers

When you go back and watch the film, it's clear Williams injured his right ankle on the first drive of the third quarter.

Grant Cohn | Jan 27, 2022

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The 49ers didn't make an announcement when Trent Williams injured his right ankle early in the third quarter against the Green Bay Packers.

Williams didn't even leave the game. He went to the sideline between series, trainers taped up his ankle and he went back on the field. No one seemed to notice him limping between plays.

After the game, reporters saw Williams leave the 49ers locker room on crutches -- he couldn't put weight on his injured right ankle. At the time, head coach Kyle Shanahan said he didn't know what the injury was. Now, we know it's either a low ankle sprain, which is minor, or a high ankle sprain, which is relatively serious. We'll know which one it is by the end of the week.

When you go back and watch the film, it's clear Williams injured his right ankle on the first drive of the third quarter. After that drive, his right ankle was wrapped with black athletic tape.

On 3rd and 16 from the Packers 23 with 8:53 remaining in the third quarter, Jimmy Garoppolo flipped a screen pass to his left, and Deebo Samuel caught it behind Williams, who blocked Packers outside linebacker Preston Smith as Samuel ran upfield.

Midway through the play, Williams hopped up in pain and started limping.

Williams finished the game, but hasn't practiced since this game, and probably won't practice all week. If the injury is a low ankle sprain, he most likely will try to play through it during the NFC Championship. If it's a high ankle sprain, he probably won't be able to play in the NFC Championship or the Super Bowl if the 49ers make it that far.

Stay tuned.

Published Jan 27, 2022

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.