Former NFL player and presenter of his own podcast, Ross Tucker, joined SB Nation’s NFL Show Tuesday and discussed why the San Francisco 49ers should not pay Trent Williams $ 20 million a year.
Rob Guerrera asked Tucker if he thought Williams deserved a $ 20 million price tag:
This is where it gets hard for me. Especially with the limit falling this year. The last thing I heard from Peter King was $ 183 million. That sounds like a lot for a tackle. I know this is the current rate. That’s what Laremy Tunsil got from the Texans because Bill O’Brien doesn’t know what he’s doing. So David Bahktari was able to win that.
I think … someone … is going to pay Trent Williams that amount. I wonder if that someone should be the San Francisco 49ers. I say this for a few different reasons. Number one is that they managed to survive without a left tackle like Trent’s. The attack, with the outer zone material, bootlegs and gameplay, is not like you’re asking the left tackle to do 40 1-to-1 dropbacks per game.
In addition, he had some bad times last year. He was a big reason why they missed that Eagles game. They made several plays against Trent Williams in the last game. I remember a game where they lost largely because of Trent Williams. Not that I sat here and watched all of Trent Williams’ games. He is a very good player and I know he has good grades from people, but it is a primetime game and I watched every snap. It’s hard not to get it out of my head.
Part of what you are paying with Kyle Shanahan is the ability to be productive without having to pay more than $ 20 million a year if that makes sense.
TL / DR: Ross Tucker did not watch Trent Williams outside of a game.
I map 49ers’ games to get an idea of how each player performs. That way, we can avoid this type of discussion. The “process” is usually lost after the games are played on Sunday in favor of the “result”. If I have a question, whether it’s Mike McGlinchey or Richard Sherman, these guys are incredibly helpful when it comes to explaining what happened. Better yet, they are open, honest and will tell you whether they made a mistake or not.
Against the eagles, Williams played 66 pressures. I mapped it for seven missing blocks, four of them coming up against the race, one against the pass and one on a screen pass. Williams allowed a serve and also had two penalties. Williams did not play by his standards.
The problem with offensive lineplay is that we never credit them with positive blocks. I use “positive blocks” and give credit to a player whenever he generates a significant move or performs a specific technique at a high level. In each game, Williams would have some “positive blocks”, while no other offensive striker in the Niners would have more than one. Against Philly, Williams had four “positive” blocks.
We watch Williams in every game. Was he one of the top three left-wing players in the NFL in 2020? Probably not. It is unfair to expect Williams to act as one of the best NFL tackles after missing an entire season after having a cancerous tumor removed from his head.
Williams was in the top five and seven, and most of that was due to his rust at the start of the season. Williams had a four-game extension last year, where he didn’t miss a block. Seriously. During the second half of the season, Williams played as the All-Pro talent he is. Now that the rust is gone, it would be foolish to think that you could get a better production than Williams. It is a game changer and is worth $ 20 million a year.
You can listen to the entire conversation below: