Trent Williams, 49ers agree to two-year extension, what it means for San Francisco's championship window

The San Francisco 49ers will keep their star left tackle around for a little while longer. The Niners and Williams agreed to an extension that will pay him up to $50 million over two years, CBS Sports NFL Insider Jonathan Jones reports. Of that $50 million, $37 million is guaranteed, and $22 million is in the form of a signing bonus. 

Williams was set to head into the final year of his contract with a $32.2 million base salary, but none of the money owed to him was guaranteed. The extension gets him those guarantees and keeps him under contract through the 2027 season, when he will be 39.

Because it's only a two-year contract, the total dollar value and total guarantee do not stack up with the other elite tackles, but the average annual value of the deal checks in eighth among all tackles, per Over the Cap, and the guarantee per year of $18.5 million ranks fourth behind only Laremy Tunsil, Lane Johnson and Jake Matthews.

With Williams now locked in for two more seasons, the 49ers could approach the upcoming NFL Draft somewhat differently than they might have otherwise. With speculation surrounding Williams' contract status, they recently became a popular destination for tackles in mock drafts. Four of the six mock drafts from CBS Sports' experts over the last week or so had the Niners taking a tackle in the first round, for example. 

Williams is still obviously aging. So, a long-term answer at left tackle remains a need, but the Niners don't have to force a pick there out of concern that they might not have a starter for the upcoming season. They know who their starter is going to be, and they know he's an elite option. Now, they can be patient and use a mid-round pick on a developmental player, or they could even push it off to next year. 

Beyond that, the Niners still have needs on the edge, at safety and on the interior of the offensive line. They're in a good spot to potentially land an edge rusher late in the first round, given the way the board sets up, and there are plenty of players they could turn to on Days 2 or 3 to provide more competition at left guard and potentially be an answer behind the aging Jake Brendel at center. 

Championship window for San Francisco

San Francisco is also now in an interesting situation with its championship window, which is both right the heck now but also potentially closing pretty quickly.

Williams will be 38 in July. George Kittle will be 33 in October and is coming off a torn Achilles tendon. Mike Evans turns 33 this summer. Christian McCaffrey turns 30 later this year. Fred Warner will be 30 in November. Nick Bosa will be 29 in October and is coming off yet another season-ending knee injury. Even Kyle Juszczyk will be 35 in a few days. There's no telling how much longer any of those guys will be at the peak of their powers, and that's the core of the team outside of Brock Purdy. 

The Niners are building out a young defensive group outside of Bosa and Warner. San Francisco drafted guys like Deommodore Lenoir, Ji'Ayir Brown, Dee Winters, Renardo Green, Tatum Bethune, Mykel Williams, Alfred Collins and Upton Stout over the last few years. Robert Saleh got that group to over-perform its talent level last year after losing Bosa, Warner and Williams to season-ending injuries. But Saleh is now the coach of the Tennessee Titans. Raheem Morris has proven to get similar results in the past, but it's also not a guarantee that he will do the same here. San Francisco needs to address those issues on the edge and at safety. The Niners also need recent draft picks, including and perhaps especially the 2025 class, to turn into hits. 

The offense is, right now, constructed almost entirely around McCaffrey's versatile skill set. Things will have to be revamped no matter what once he's gone. Kittle is arguably the single-biggest key to the run game and a big-play threat both up the seam and as a run-after-catch guy, and there is basically no way to replace all that he does with just one player. Williams is one of the best left tackles in the NFL, and it's not easy to just plug-and-play someone in that role, either. And they'll need to find someone to replace Evans as the X receiver once he plays out his deal.

None of those four guys has any guaranteed money beyond the 2027 season, so it's entirely reasonable to expect them all to be off the team by the time the Niners lace up their boots for 2028 -- which not coincidentally is the first time that Purdy's contract becomes burdensome. Purdy carries cap hits of $23.7 million and $30.1 million over the next two years, but the hit balloons to $56.9 million in 2028. The Niners will presumably figure out a way to restructure that deal to make the hit more manageable, but even once they do that, there's the talent portion to worry about. 

With Purdy on his rookie deal and even on these manageable numbers over the next couple of years, it's easy to carry players making as much money as the Niners' other stars. Once his salary number starts rising, though, that's when you need to replace those older star players with guys you get in the draft, and that puts a lot of pressure on San Francisco to nail its picks over the next two years so that it's not working from behind the eight ball when it comes time to replace them.