Mykel Williams Is Back on the Practice Field, and This Defense Needs Him Now

Eleven months after his knee gave out against the Giants, our 2025 first round pick is running around in a helmet again. With Nick Bosa on the sideline, the timing couldn't be better.

Of all the injury news this week, and there's been a mountain of it, this is the one that made me sit up on the couch. Mykel Williams was back on the practice field Wednesday. Limited, sure. Still on the PUP list, sure. But there he was, in a helmet, doing football things for the first time since last November.

I've been waiting on this one for a long time. Longer than I'd admit to most people.

The Niners opened his 21 day practice window, which means they've got three weeks to put him on the active roster. He isn't eligible for Denver on Sunday. He is eligible for Seattle in Week 5. And with the way this defensive line looks right now, I'd have him suited up for the walkthrough tomorrow if I could.

Why I've been so impatient about this kid

Go back to the 2025 draft. We took him 11th overall out of Georgia, and I'll admit I thought the pick was a little boring at the time. Big, physical edge guy, plays the run, not the flashiest sack numbers in college. Then I watched him play.

Nine games. Nine starts. Twenty tackles, eleven of them solo, four tackles for loss, three quarterback hits, a sack and a fumble recovery. Those numbers won't make anybody's highlight package, I know that. But watch what the offense does when he's on the field. They stop running at his side. He sets the edge like a guy who's been doing it for six years, not six weeks, and he's got the size to slide inside and push a guard back on passing downs.

That's the thing about Williams I don't think people outside the Bay picked up on. He isn't a one trick player. He's a run defender who can rush the passer, and a pass rusher who doesn't get you killed on first down. Those guys are rare, and when you find one in the first round, you build around him.

Then Week 9 happened. We beat the Giants, and I didn't even enjoy it, because by the next day we knew it was his ACL and the lateral meniscus in his right knee. Season over. Nine games into his career.

Bosa's out, and somebody has to do the dirty work

My stomach turns a little when I look at the rest of the line. Bosa sat out Arizona with the calf and he's not playing Sunday against the Broncos either. Keion White's hamstring kept him out of Wednesday's practice. James Thompson's ankle kept him out too. Romello Height was limited with a hand. The team went out and grabbed Matthew Judon, and I'm glad they did, but when you're signing veteran pass rushers off the street in late September you know where you are.

We're 3 and 0 anyway. We beat the Rams in Melbourne, we beat Miami, we survived Arizona. Honestly, I don't know how. I wrote about how Bosa's calf changes the whole picture, and I laid out the Denver matchup in my Broncos preview. I'm not going to pretend the pass rush is anything but the thing I'm most nervous about this month.

That's why Williams matters so much right now. He isn't Bosa. Nobody is. But he can take the snaps on the strong side, hold the edge against the run so the linebackers can breathe, and kick inside on third down so we're not leaning on guys who were on somebody's couch two weeks ago. Against Seattle, the defending champs, in a division game, that's exactly the guy I want out there.

The thing I keep coming back to

John Lynch said this week that Williams "looks excellent and it's been a long time coming." He talked about the mental grind of a long rehab and said he's been really proud of how Mykel embraced it. He's carrying 265 pounds coming out of it. That tells me he didn't spend the summer sitting around feeling sorry for himself.

I'm going to say something some of you won't like. I don't buy the "injury prone" label people have started hanging on him. One ACL isn't a pattern. It's bad luck, it happens to football players, and he's barely old enough to rent a car. A healthy Mykel Williams for the next decade is a real possibility, and I'd bet on it before I'd bet against it.

My buddy texted me Wednesday when the news dropped. "Is this the kid from Georgia?" Yeah. That's the kid. Keep an eye on him.

I don't expect him to play 60 snaps against Seattle. I'd be shocked if Kyle let him. Ease him in, give him 20 or 25 plays, let him get his legs under him. But by the time Bosa's back, I think we're going to look up and realize we've got two guys on the edge who can wreck a game. That's the defense I've been dreaming about since the night we drafted him.

Get healthy, Mykel. Stay healthy. We need you more than you know.

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