Trent Williams Makes his Return to Practice

Phenomenal news for the San Francisco 49ers.

Star left tackle Trent Williams returned to practice on Thursday for the first time since he suffered an ankle injury in Week 6 against the Cleveland Browns.

The fact that he was active, no matter the capacity, on Thursday gives him a decent chance to start when the 49ers face the Jacksonville Jaguars this week. Williams will need to participate for Friday's practice, which will heavily increase the likelihood that he will be active.

Starters/star players like Williams usually only need to have participated in at least two practices to be active on game day. In the case of Williams, it is even more crucial that he gets two practices in because it indicates how his ankle injury is trending in the right direction. Head coach Kyle Shanahan spoke on Williams' injury on Wednesday indicating that the injury was worse than initially thought.

"It didn't show up as a high or anything like that, but when you've had that over your career, there's a number of things that with how it's taking longer than expected to heal, it's more than a low." said Shanahan.

Jaylon Moore has been filling in for Williams, and he's actually done a solid job. Backup offensive tackles tend to be liabilities when they need to start multiple games, but Moore was holding his own nicely. If Williams needs to take another week off, then the 49ers won't need to be worried with Moore starting against the Jaguars.

Still, it is great to have Williams back in the fold should he be active on Sunday.