The San Francisco 49ers fell just short of a Super Bowl LVII appearance with their loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship Game. This has led to 49ers veteran offensive tackle Trent Williams comtemplating his future in the NFL.
Williams discussed his future with Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday, detailing that he’s not taking the possibility of retirement off the table this offseason.
“It’s a long season,” said Williams. “And having two long seasons back-to-back, it does get pretty grueling for a 34-year-old guy like myself. I’ll be 35 when the 2023 season starts. You do kind of think about what’s life like after football. I’ve done this every year of my life since the second grade.”
“You do get to that age, especially at the end the year like this, as exhausting as it was. And still not getting quite where you want to be. I get it. You get to that age. But, honestly, I’m just taking it one day at time, and we’ll see how that goes going forward.”
Williams has been the model of consistency for an offensive lineman in the NFL, being named to the Pro Bowl in each of his last ten NFL seasons.
While he can certainly still play at a high level, Williams continued to say that the day-to-day grind in the NFL may be starting to wear on him.
“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t,” Williams said of the grind of an NFL season. “Yeah, it does. It isn’t hard to get up for NFC Championship Game, or playoffs, or anything like that. But, yeah, the day-to-day grind does get pretty redundant after doing it for a long time.”
Williams may feel differently after some time away from football this offseason, but these comments certainly make it feel like his career could be coming to an end shortly.
