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Will 49ers LT Trent Williams Play Week 1 Against the New York Jets?

Williams wants to be the highest-paid offensive lineman in the league, which means he wants at least an additional $8 million this season on top of his $20 million base salary. He probably wants his money guaranteed as well.

Grant Cohn

Nov 19, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Trent Williams (71) before the game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 19, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Trent Williams (71) before the game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports / Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports
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Finally, the 49ers came to a contractual agreement with Brandon Aiyuk, who most likely will play in the season opener against the New York Jets on Sept. 9 despite missing all of training camp.

Will Trent Williams play in the season opener, too?

Like Aiyuk, Williams wants a major raise. But unlike Aiyuk, Williams seems willing to retire if the 49ers don't give him what he wants. And while Aiyuk is a good player who's important to the 49ers, Williams is a great player who's integral to their success. They're 3-6 without him since 2020. They absolutely need him to beat the Jets, because the Jets have an elite defense and the 49ers have the worst offensive line in the NFL if Willliams isn't part of it.

Williams wants to be the highest-paid offensive lineman in the league, which means he wants at least an additional $8 million this season on top of his $20 million base salary. He probably wants his money guaranteed as well.

You could understand why the 49ers would prefer not to redo Williams' deal: he still has three years left on it plus he's 36. There's no guarantee his career will last beyond this season. He could retire at any time. He has made more than enough money in his career.

But the 49ers don't have a replacement for Williams if he sits out. They pretty much have to give him exactly what he wants. And as we just learned from the standoff with Aiyuk, the 49ers usually cave and give their star players what they want at the last minute.

Expect Williams to play Week 1.

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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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