Trent Talk Heating up!

Ron Rivera recently said at the Super Bowl during one of several interviews that he had not met with Trent Williams yet.

As I said on 106.7 The FAN on Tuesday, I take this to not be a great sign.

I could be wrong, but if it was a huge priority, you would have thought it would have happened at this point.

The Redskins obviously need to figure this out and get it settled quickly. Free agency opens in a little over a month. The draft is in less than three months.

Can they carry Williams $14.75 million cap figure once the league year opens (start of free agency) until a resolution? They can. It's not a great option, however.

There's a couple of items at play here:

Williams has made it clear several times that he wants more guaranteed cash. The Redskins are obviously not going to just give out more years and cash without a strong commitment from Williams.

It's hard to do that if neither side has shown a strong desire to get a resolution so far.

Could the Redskins guarantee Williams 2020 base salary of $12.5 million to give him an incentive to bury the hatchet?

The answer is I believe they can but I'm not 100% sure. The salary would be guaranteed once he's on the week one roster but not before then. Can they move up that date without extending the contract? Would that give both sides something of an assurance?

The problem from a Redskins perspective is this. Even if that's allowed under the CBA - do the Redskins have any desire to do that?

My guess would be absolutely not. Why? It's not even known if Trent Williams can comfortably wear a helmet at this point, never mind if he can get in collisions and do all of the things he would need to do to play football as a recovering cancer patient.

The Redskins absolutely cannot afford another dead money albatross on their salary cap.

The other major unknown and enormous issue is this: There's still bitter feelings on both sides.

As we mention in the video - a trade to Cleveland, who needs a left tackle and was rumored to be in pursuit of Williams, made sense last year and makes even more sense now that Bill Callahan has joined them as their offensive line coach.

The Redskins would need to get a minimum of a second-round pick out of any trade, in my opinion, because they don't have one.

Chris Russell is the Publisher of RedskinsReport.com & Sports Illustrated's Washington Redskins channel. He can be heard on 106.7 The FAN in the Washington D.C. area and world-wide on Radio.com. Chris also hosts the "Locked on Redskins" Podcast and can be read via subscription to Warpath Magazine. You can e-mail Chris at russellmania09@Gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @Russellmania621.