The San Francisco 49ers are familiar with looming unsettled offseason moves this late in the preseason.
Last year as the final preseason game approached, the 49ers had defensive end Nick Bosa’s contract still unfinished and a mess to clean up in their quarterback room as the battle for the backup job waged between Trey Lance and Sam Darnold.
This year it’s wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk’s hold-in and left tackle Trent Williams’ holdout that still need to be resolved.
Bosa’s holdout went beyond the preseason. He didn’t return to the field until practice began the Wednesday before Week 1 of the regular season. Perhaps that’ll be the case for one of either Williams or Aiyuk.
However, the 49ers may not want to let anything linger that long again. They don’t have the wiggle room to have two of their top offensive players behind the curve when they take the field Week 1 against the New York Jets. It’s hard to imagine both Aiyuk and Williams playing at a high level with only three days of practice under their belts.
Instead, we’ll look at the Lance situation which ended with the QB getting traded to the Dallas Cowboys on August 25 — the same day of their preseason finale against the Los Angeles Chargers. Getting that in before final cuts helped the 49ers’ decision-making when it came to whittling down their roster. There’s no such choice with Aiyuk and Williams, but their presence would change the calculus on how the rest of their position groups get filled out.
This year the 49ers wrap up their preseason slate against the Las Vegas Raiders on Friday, Aug. 23. That may be, and perhaps should be, when the Aiyuk and Williams situations ultimately get resolved.
A nice Friday news dump just ahead of their preseason finale would help offset some of the bad vibes lingering by the prolonged contract talks of the two All-Pros. That would also give Aiyuk and Williams nearly two weeks to ramp up with bonus practices in the week before the regular season, and then a full week of regular-season practices before getting suited up for the opener on Sept. 9.
That still may not be enough time to get both players playing at the highest level after missing all of the offseason program and training camp, but it should give them enough of a foundation to at least be serviceable when the regular-season begins.
Training camp was the original soft deadline and nothing happened then. Now we’re going to circle the final preseason game as another soft deadline since final cuts take place a few days later on Aug. 27. If there’s no resolution by then, things really step into the realm of outcomes where the Williams and Aiyuk contract talks could have a real impact on the regular season.