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Will 49ers LT Trent Williams Regress in 2024?

Remember, Joe Staley played a full season when he was 34, missed 9 games when he was 35 and retired when he was 36. Careers can end quickly.
Grant Cohn|
Dec 17, 2023; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Trent Williams (71) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 17, 2023; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Trent Williams (71) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports | Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

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San Francisco 49ers

For now, Trent Williams still is the 49ers' best player.

He's also their oldest player and he'll turn 36 on July 19. And he rarely practices. And despite the fact that he misses at least two games every season, he has been first team All Pro each of the last three seasons. So he's the best left tackle in the NFL and a future Hall of Famer.

But eventually, he will regress. And that regression could start this year.

In fact, it might have started last season in the Super Bowl. In the biggest game of his life, at the end of a long, grueling season, Williams simply didn't play well. He committed two penalties and got knocked on his back multiple times by cornerbacks. He looked old.

Williams is extremely agile for his size and he almost never gives up sacks, but he's not physically imposing anymore. He doesn't punish defenders. And he's fragile. At some point in his career, his yearly ankle sprain will turn into something chronic. Something he feels even when he's on the field. And eventually, he'll retire.

Remember, Joe Staley played a full season when he was 34, missed 9 games when he was 35 and retired when he was 36. Careers can end quickly.

I'm guessing Williams will more more than a couple games this season and his performance will take a significant hit due to age and nagging injuries. And the 49ers will struggle big time when he's not on the field.

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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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