In the minutes after the 2020 NFL Draft had come to a close, and media members were tossing out questions on a private Zoom video call, Wahington Redskins VP of Player Personnel Kyle Smith let some grief off of his chest when asked to comment on the Trent Williams trade that landed the former Redskin with the San Francisco 49ers earlier in the day.
“I can’t wait to stop talking about it,” Smith said. “I can’t wait to stop hearing about it.”
He may have said it, but every single one of us was thinking it.
While the Redskins completed another highly successful draft on Saturday evening, another era had come to an end just hours prior. The years of Trent Williams in Washington are behind us once and for all. Thank God.
I don’t mean that as a slight to Williams; he is a great person, a great teammate, and a great player, and we wish him the utmost success with the 49ers in the future. But this saga has dragged on for more than a year now, and it was mercifully put to rest on Saturday morning when the trade was announced. Now we can all work on moving past it.
And that’s what we need to collectively do as a fanbase. There, of course, will be stories of Williams’ move that come up over the next few days, or weeks, or months, and I’m sure both sides will get their parting shots in as the divorce is finalized — that is to be expected when two sides break up after such a long relationship where feelings ran high and passion was intense at times. Both the Redskins and Trent cared deeply about one another, and I’m sure everyone is a bit disappointed a happier ending couldn’t be rectified at some point during this whole thing.
In the end, it’s hard to argue that both sides of the break-up aren’t better off. In the short term, it’s easy to see that the 49ers are the winners in all of this, as they got a superstar player in Williams for the low price of a third- and fifth-round pick, but both the Redskins and Trent have a lot to gain here as well. They both lost a lot through this all too. For Trent, he ended up sitting out the entire 2019 season and kissing $13 million goodbye for nothing — he will reportedly play out the rest of his contract in San Fran. For the Redskins, they lost a potentially valuable year of growth for QB Dwayne Haskins, someone who would have surely benefited from Williams’ presence on the front line. That’s all behind us though, and while it may be frustrating to think about the time lost, try to promise yourself that you’ll think of the bright side in all of this.
For instance, the Redskins are now entering the 2020 season completely free of old drama tying them down. Quinton Dunbar is gone, Bruce Allen is gone, and now Trent Williams is gone. There are no longer players in the locker room who don’t wish to be there, and everyone in the building has bought into Ron Rivera’s plan. For Williams, he is finally on a legitimate playoff-contending team — one which made it to the Super Bowl last February — and he has a great chance to get that elusive ring before his career is over.
So with that in mind, we can be happy with how things have left off between Trent Williams and the Redskins. We may not love how they got here, or the fact that a goodbye was necessary in the first place, but we can at least go to sleep at night knowing that both sides ended up the better for a split in the end, and everyone is better off now than they were just 24 hours ago.
With the utmost sincerity, thank you for everything Trent. You will always live on as one of the best Redskins in franchise history.
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