49ers could avoid Super hangover, add Trent Williams at low cost
Super Bowl hangover is a very real thing. No NFL champion has repeated since the 2003 New England Patriots. There’s not much mystery here. Winners expect to be compensated. The payroll is pushed upward, salary cap squeezed, valuable players lost, often causing bitterness that lingers in the locker room. Some players who remain become complacent, resting on laurels. Some of the key assistant coaches leave to become head coaches elsewhere.
The hangover tends to be even worse for Super Bowl losers. They keep reliving the failure, which leads to more failure. The 2015 Carolina Panthers were upset by Denver in the Super Bowl and won only 6 games the next season. The 2018 LA Rams lost the Super Bowl by 10 points and failed to make the playoffs last season.
But there are exceptions to this pattern. The Patriots beat the Rams after losing to Philadelphia in the previous Super Bowl.
This season’s 49ers – if there is a season – show every indication of moving forward from a Super Bowl loss that could have been emotionally devastating. They blew what should have been a secure lead to Kansas City.
But general manager John Lynch has executed an amazing rebound, making two trades to set up last week’s bountiful draft. First, he dealt a Pro Bowl defensive tackle, DeForest Buckner, to Indianapolis for its pick in Thursday’s first round. There’s nothing wrong with Buckner, but he was about to enter the final year of his rookie contract. The Colts quickly granted him an extension –- at $21 million a year.
With this year’s draft regarded as one of the best ever, Lynch figured he could find more value moving away from Buckner.
So with the No. 14 pick obtained from Indy, Lynch drafted Buckner’s successor: Javon Kinlaw, 6-foot-6, 305-pound defensive tackle from South Carolina.
Lynch’s second trade was far more one-sided in his favor than the Buckner swap. The 49ers had to give up only a fifth-round pick in this year’s draft and a third-rounder next year to acquire football’s most accomplished and most durable left tackle, Trent Williams, who was so disenchanted with the Washington Redskins that he sat out last season. He said he would sit out another season if the team refused to trade him.
He was so happy to go to San Francisco that he did not demand a contract renegotiation and will play for the $12 million he would have earned in Washington. This is way below the current standard for elite left tackles. Laremy Tunsil last week signed with Houston for $22 million per season on a 3-year deal.
At 31, Williams still should be in his prime, assuming a year of rest hasn’t dulled his skills. He fills what would have been a gaping hole, as 35-year-old Joe Staley informed the 49ers that he was retiring. Because he appreciated the way Lynch has treated him, Staley agreed to delay announcing retirement until the team could acquire his replacement.
Not only did Lynch upgrade the critical position that protects quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo’s blind side, he traded up to acquire a potential Pro Bowl receiver in Brandon Aiyuk from Arizona State.
Aiyuk, who went 25th in the first round, has explosive speed. His coach, former NFL-er Herm Edwards, compared him to DeSean Jackson as a deep threat.
This element was missing in Kyle Shanahan’s otherwise dazzling offense. It may have cost a Super Bowl win, as the aging Emmanuel Sanders had trouble shaking free for a last-minute bomb from Garoppolo. The 49ers’ other wideout, Deebo Samuel, may be the league’s fastest player going 1-30 yards, but his longest reception last year went only 42. Lynch was so enamored of Aiyuk that he intended to draft him at No. 14 if Kinlaw had not been available.
As for Kinlaw, he had one of the most compelling backstories of the Virtual Draft. He grew up homeless in Washington, D.C., spent winter days on a subway train just to stay warm. At night he stumbled over dead bodies to reach whatever temporary shelter his mom could find. He had more pressing concerns than football, didn’t even begin playing the game until he was 15.
There was a time when such a harrowing background would have frightened NFL executives. They would have worried about a player being psychologically scarred.
But it’s different now, as the NFL has learned to value athletes who overcame traumatic adversity.
Austin Jackson, left tackle drafted by Miami in the first round, underwent excruciating surgery to donate bone marrow to save the life of his anemic sister.
Carolina in the second round drafted a defensive end, Yetur Gross-Matos, who at age 2 saw his father drown while saving him from the same fate. A few years later there was more tragedy: the boy’s 12-year-old brother killed by lightning.
In a league as grueling and debilitating as the NFL, it may be that character is as coveted as athleticism.
