San Francisco 49ers Star Trent Williams Holds the Cards
Trent Williams remains the 49ers' linchpin, but an untested offensive line's future hinges entirely on his fragile presence.
Video Transcript
The San Francisco 49ers are entering an off-season that demands a lot of action.
And while much of the attention will, as always, be on the skill players, Let's talk about the offensive line.
The 49ers' offensive line has been held together by one generational player in Trent Williams.
Outside of Trent Williams, that group is a rotating cast of players and not cohesive.
Unit.
This year, we had Spencer Burford, who has moved around the line pretty much without ever settling in one position.
We had center, Jake Brendel, who is now on the other side of 30 and very inconsistent.
We have Colton McKivitz, who's a cost- conscious player and plays like one.
We also have Dominic Pooney, who is young, but injury-prone.
Behind them, well, we have Connor Colby, who's raw, Ben Bartch.
Who can't stay healthy, and the rest of a depth chart full of a list of players you want to believe in, but absolutely cannot trust at this point.
Through the Kyle Shanahan era, this has definitely been common.
No one notices you don't have an offensive line until you don't have one.
Trent Williams has said that he plans to return next season.
And on the surface, that sounds great, but in reality, that could mean a lot of different things.
The truth is, is that he has immense leverage over the 49ers organization.
Not that we think he's someone to exploit that, but he could retire, choose to hold out, or simply decide that his body's had enough.
And the 49ers really have no backup plan.
We've already seen what happens when these depth linemen are forced into action, and there is no contingency plan.
They've placed themselves in a position where the most irreplaceable offensive lineman is also the oldest, and the entire structure behind him is unproven.
That's just simply not good roster construction.
At some point, their luck will run out, as we saw the couple games that Trent Williams couldn't play this season.
They don't need to rebuild the entire offensive line in one off-season, but if they put it off, it's going to cost them a lot line.
A salary cap issue is already problematic for the 49ers organization.
Not having four offensive linemen to be with Trent Williams will prove much more costly.
