Shanahan: Trent is similar to Joe. They’re the two most athletic guys that I have ever been around

San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan is familiar with newly acquired left tackle Trent Williams. Shanahan discussed what made Williams a good fit for the 49ers and why the team was able to trade for Williams at such a discounted price.

Shanahan also talked about the decision to trade for Williams and his contract. If you were a fan of Iowa’s Tristan Wirfs, general manager John Lynch said San Francisco was “extremely fond” of Wirfs, and he was under consideration with the 49ers’ first pick. Lynch said letting Wirfs go was “a risk we were willing to take” as the 49ers were persistent in the Williams trade and ultimately ended up acquiring the star left tackle.

Here is Kyle’s discussing the Williams acquisition:

Yeah, I mean, we were in Washington when we drafted Trent. Skillset wise, Trent is similar to Joe. I mean, they’re two of the most athletic guys that I have ever been around at that position, and they can run and are great for our scheme. He’s a great dude, too. I love the guy, and I was able to talk to him today for the first time in a while and congratulate him. I know it’s been a while for him going through the situation he has for the last year and a half. I know he’s very fresh and is hungry and eager to get back to football as anyone I’ve ever talked to.

Also, knowing the guy, I can tell how passionate he is about it. As far as what you asked, like long term plans and stuff, I think that’s one of the reasons we were able to get him. When this happened with Joe right here and the possibilities of Trent coming up, Trent’s been out of football for a year and a half, and Trent made it clear, I think, to everyone he wants to come back and didn’t want to do a deal right away. Really wanted to play and try to get back into it and see where he was at with the rest of the league and if he can pick up where he left off.

So, I think that’s one of the reasons that we were able to get him; we were able to get him for what we did. I think it really helped us in the situation we’re in, because one thing John and I realized, just going through these last two months, what was so different in these last three years is every decision we make, we’re always trying to win. We were always trying to build this the right way. That’s something you’ve heard us say for a long time, and this is the first offseason that we’ll never finish with, “We’re trying to build this the right way.” This is the first year we look at it as we’re always building it for the future, but we’re not trying to build it for next year. We’re trying to build it the right way and never make bad decisions over the long haul, but we also feel we should’ve won the Super Bowl last year, and we want to have an opportunity to win it again.

So, every decision we made was also with, how do we help this organization for the future, but it still feels like we’re in a position to be the same team, if not better this year than we were last year? Those are the things that come into play. You might have some absolutes. People will say, ‘You never pass up a top-five tackle if you can get him at 13.’ Well, what if you can get a top three-technique? What can that do to your D-Line? Well, that’s good, what happens next? You try to connect that all together and map out the best thing. But, the bottom line is you’re just trying to build our team the best we can to win this year without totally jeopardizing us in the future, and I think we balance that out as much as we can here over the last three days. That’s what we tried to balance out in free agency, too. That was a little different with how we had to work the first three years. It was a challenge, but when it’s all said and done, it was fun, and I like the decisions we’ve made.