Whoever is starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers next season, he will have star left tackle Trent Williams there to protect him.
The 10-time Pro Bowl selection had referenced thinking about retirement two days after the 49ers fell 31-7 to the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship Game last week.
However, he said definitively on Saturday that he will be playing for the team in the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
“Yeah, for sure,” Williams, 34, told NFL Media at the Pro Bowl Games practices in Las Vegas. “Next year, the year after. I’m under contract until I’m 39 (years old).”
The news comes the same day the NFL fined Williams $12,731 for unnecessary roughness — actions that led to his ejection late in last week’s game.
Williams isn’t participating in the Pro Bowl Games Skills Showdown on Sunday after dealing with food poisoning.
“Even though I’m probably the most skilled pro out here, but we’re gonna leave that to another discussion,” Williams said.
An All-Pro in 2021 and 2022, Williams was selected for his third consecutive Pro Bowl with the 49ers. He earned Pro Bowl honors in each of the previous seven seasons with Washington, the team that selected him out of Oklahoma with the fourth overall pick of the 2010 NFL Draft.
Williams is currently playing on a reported six-year, $138 million contract through 2026, including a salary cap hit of $55 million during the next two seasons. The team’s quarterback situation is in flux with injuries to young players Trey Lance and Brock Purdy, and veteran Jimmy Garoppolo a free agent not expected to return.
On Tuesday after the season-ending loss, Williams said he was blessed to have played as long as he has, but it is a grind.
“It’s a long season, having two long seasons back-to-back, it does get pretty grueling for a 34-year-old guy like myself,” Williams said, via NBC Sports Bay Area. “You do kind of think about what’s life like after football, because I’ve done this every year of my life since the second grade. You do get to that age, especially after ending the year like this and it being as exhausting as it was and still not getting quite where you want to be. I get it, you get to that age. Honestly, I’m just taking it one day at a time and we’ll see how it goes.”
–Field Level Media