The player grades are coming to an end, and it's time we take a look at one player that I totally forgot about until Fooch sent me an email yesterday asking me to put this together: Madieu Williams. He was brought in after Dashon Goldson had apparently left for greener pastures this past offseason, and was slated to be the starter. But Goldson didn't get the offer he was looking for (or perhaps any offer at all) from the New England Patriots, and the 49ers quickly re-signed him.

So folks quickly forgot about Williams, though he did remain on the roster and yes, despite the fact that you never heard his name during the regular season, he most definitely did play. The weird thing about the Williams situation and the fact that he just disappeared is that folks here at Niners Nation were excited to see what he can do as the starting free safety of the 49ers.

Honestly - myself included.

I was excited to see if he could prove his worth and I felt that he could. His skillset seemed good, he's aging, but hadn't appeared to lose any of his speed. More than all of that, he wasn't very mistake prone and didn't get burned a lot. I'd suggest that a good portion of this site was happy to have Williams as the starter-to-be. Instead, Williams started just three games, had only nine tackles, no interceptions or passes defensed, and played mostly on special teams or not at all, appearing in 15 games.

It wasn't so much that he couldn't play more and put up his stats it's just as though ... the 49ers totally forgot about him. I know I did while the season was going on, so how do we then grade him? I guess I give him a poor rating, though I still think Williams can see viable playing time with a team in 2012. That being said, I don't expect him back with the 49ers, so this grade post should be interesting.