SANTA CLARA, Calif. — After 40 days of waiting, Trent Williams’ holdout is over.
The San Francisco 49ers and their star left tackle agreed Tuesday to a restructured three-year, $82.66 million deal that includes $48 million at signing, a $25.69 million signing bonus and will pay him a league high ($27.65 million) for offensive linemen this season, according to his agency.
The reworked deal brought Williams back to the Bay Area in the wee hours of Tuesday morning and back to Levi’s Stadium in time for Tuesday’s short practice followed by a 15-minute news conference with Bay Area reporters.
Asked what he hoped to accomplish with his holdout, Williams said, simply, “security.” While he still had three years left on the deal he signed in 2021, that contract didn’t include any more guaranteed money.
“I didn’t think that it would get this drawn out, but it’s a tough business and this was a very intricate contract,” Williams said. “I wouldn’t call it a dispute but restructure. It took time to get to where both sides feel like it’s a win-win.”
At the center of the issue between the Niners and Williams was figuring out how to compensate a player who remained among the best, if not the best, player at his position even at age 36.
Williams said Tuesday he initially sought to have the 49ers guarantee the remaining dollars on the six-year, $138.1 million deal he signed to stay in San Francisco in 2021. He also acknowledged there was a respect factor stemming from the fact he was no longer the league’s highest-paid tackle in terms of annual average salary.
Those discussions began as far back as the team’s June minicamp, but Williams said he came away from that thinking a deal could take a while because the Niners had other business to take care of, including extensions for running back Christian McCaffrey and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk.
While Williams was away, neither Niners general manager John Lynch nor coach Kyle Shanahan expressed doubt that something with Williams would get done. Not knowing how much longer Williams intended to play, let alone at his current level, made finding the sweet spot for guaranteed money and for how long a more difficult proposition.
“I was under contract until 38, so it’s hard to ask somebody to guarantee an eight-figure salary when I’m 38,” Williams said. “I get that and I feel like in my heart of hearts I’ll be the same player and I feel like I work hard enough that I can keep that brand of football the same. But I understand it.
“I’ve been around long enough to where I get both sides of it, so I didn’t take that as disrespect. But that was one of the key points is like yeah, I was under contract until I was 38. It is hard to tell somebody, ‘Hey, they ain’t never seen it before.’… We’ve never seen people play and be the best at their position that’s not a quarterback, so I get it. And to me it’s just more logs in the fire to kind of prove that I can be something that we haven’t seen before.”
In recent years, Williams has openly discussed the potential for retirement, but he has also said he’d like to play until he’s 40. Since he arrived via trade in 2020, Williams has been well taken care of by Shanahan, getting regular veteran days off so he can endure the grind of the season.
With the Niners making deep postseason runs to at least the NFC Championship Game in each of the past three years, Williams has also had to learn to better prepare for the rigors of longer seasons than he’d been accustomed to in Washington.
Still, Williams, who has been selected to 11 Pro Bowls (most among active players), doesn’t sound like someone who has any designs on retirement any time soon.
“I’m going to play as long as I can,” Williams said. “As long as I feel like I’m a productive player. As long as I feel like I have something to offer, I’m going to want to play football. That’s all I’ve done since the second grade.
“I’ve seen (Andrew) Whitworth winning a Super Bowl at 41 or 42. It is like, why not me? So, who knows if you get compensated at the top of your position at the age of 40? But I don’t think that matters. To me if I could still be out there. I just want to continue to knock barriers down. And I know at my age it’s probably, there’s not been a lot of people to play at an All-Pro level outside of a quarterback.”
In 2023, Williams ranked as the best pass-blocking tackle in the NFL with a 95.8% pass block win rate. The Niners averaged 6.05 yards per carry when rushing behind Williams to the left side while averaging 4.45 yards per attempt on all other rushes.
Along the way, Williams sat out two games, played through injury in another and played only 12 snaps in a meaningless Week 18 game against the Rams. The Niners were 0-4 in those games and 12-1 in all others.
All of which made getting Williams back in the building Tuesday imperative and contributed to why Shanahan and Lynch always said they’d get something done. While Williams said he actually missed the camaraderie and leadership part of training camp, he did his best to not think about the $50,000 per day and preseason game check fines he accrued along the way.
“For lack of a better word, it’s kind of war,” Williams said. “Both sides going to lose a little blood but wave the white flag at the end. We both signed a little peace treaty. We good.”
Given their current offensive line issues, Williams’ return doesn’t come a moment too soon for the Niners. Their top three guards — Aaron Banks (broken pinkie), Spencer Burford (broken hand) and Jon Feliciano (knee surgery) — have sat out significant practice time. Feliciano will sit out regular-season games.
Fourth-year veteran Jaylon Moore handled left tackle duties in Williams’ stead throughout the preseason, but Williams was expected to step back into his starting role quickly upon his return, a notion he relishes.
“You think of a kid not being able to go off for recess and got to watch everybody through the window,” Williams said of his holdout. “It was some really up and down times and there were times where I didn’t know if it was really worth it. … I wanted to see my boys.”
