49ers literally have no choice but to agree on a Trent Williams contract extension

ESPN’s Field Yates notes a key detail of the Pro Bowl lineman’s restructured deal.

The San Francisco 49ers did just about every football fan the most merciful kind of favor when they found a way to end the protracted, agonizing standoff between tackle Trent Williams and the Washington Redskins. The latter’s trust in the former had completely eroded, and the bad blood ran so deep that it only took a fifth-round pick and a future third-rounder to rescue him from the nation’s capital during the NFL Draft.

In short order, the 49ers were hard at work trying to make sure their investment in the seven-time Pro Bowler was perfectly measured, restructuring the final year of his contract so that a portion of his fully non-guaranteed salary $12.5 million salary for 2020 became guaranteed — but that’s not the only detail worth noting.

San Francisco 49ers cannot use the franchise tag on Trent Williams in 2021

Point blank, the 49ers are betting on themselves to hammer out a rich contract extension with Williams before he hits free agency next year. Without the luxury of the franchise tag as a fail-safe option, they either find a way to agree or the All-Pro lineman walks away for nothing.

Given what we know about John Lynch, who methodically built the 49ers into NFC champs, this should inspire confidence. In the hands of a long list of lesser front offices, this would rather feel a bit suicidal.

Williams isn’t just any tackle, after all. He famously claimed he wouldn’t report to Washington’s training camp last year as part of a bitter dispute over the team medical staff’s handling of what turned out to be a cancerous soft tissue tumor in his head. After demanding a trade and not getting his wish, he ended up not playing a single game in 2019.

You might not be crazy if you assumed that making this man happy was not a simple task. Relocating from the hopeless franchise in Washington to a defending conference champ by the Bay, however, might just have been a panacea.

That’s what the 49ers are wagering, anyway.