Trent Williams says he won’t carry grudge into game vs. ex-Washington teammates
From 2010 to 2018, Williams — who will face his former team Sunday when Washington plays the 49ers in Arizona — was a rock at the end of Washington’s offensive line, a seven-time Pro Bowl player who was widely considered one of the league’s best tackles. But his time with the team ended awkwardly when he refused to play in 2019, upset over a botched cancer diagnosis by the team’s medical staff.
Even after ending his holdout during that season’s trade deadline, he was banished from the team’s practice facility by Bruce Allen, the team’s president at the time. After failing to come to an agreement with Ron Rivera, the team’s new coach, on a contract extension, he was dealt on the last day of the draft to San Francisco for a fifth-round pick in 2020 and a 2021 third-round pick.
On Thursday, Williams shook his head when asked whether the standoff with Rivera was financial, saying, “If it was about the money, I could have took the money in Minnesota,” a reference to the Vikings, who also wanted to trade for him.
After meeting with Rivera in February, he said it was clear he needed to go elsewhere.
“We were on two different pages,” he said of Rivera. “He was coming into a team he probably didn’t know all that well, and I think he wanted everybody to show him what they had. And at the point I was in my career, I didn’t think I had to show him what I had just to stick around. I knew there would be suitors out there, so I respectfully wanted to go my own way. There was no disrespect.”
Williams said he has not spoken with team owner Daniel Snyder, someone for whom he has expressed affection in the past and made sure to praise during his holdout while attacking Allen. He does speak regularly with former teammates, many of whom he considers close friends, and follows their careers.
“My goal was to be a good teammate and put a good product on the field, and I think I did both,” he said when asked what he wanted his legacy to be in Washington. “I played pretty good, productive football while I was there and received a lot of accolades for it. And that’s all I wanted to do. I want my legacy, when you think about me, is as a football player that does his job pretty well. If that’s not what they think when they see me, then they just have a difference of opinion.”
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