49ers' Trent Williams didn't hold back in his belief in Kyle Shanahan

The San Francisco 49ers had a tough campaign in 2025, as they had several key players miss time due to injury and their top wide receiver left the team without much communication.

Despite that, San Francisco finished the season with a 12-5 record, not good enough to come in first or second in the NFC West, but good enough to make the postseason. The 49ers then upset the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card round before falling to eventual Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks the following week.

While few teams would've done as well as San Francisco in that situation, 49ers offensive tackle Trent Williams wants everyone to know that it's all because of his head coach, Kyle Shanahan.

"While we were on that same sideline, I told him 'I don't understand how you don't win Coach of the Year,'" Williams said on "The Pivot Podcast" this week. “The fact that he made us competitive, that fact that we believed we could go win a Super Bowl, he made us believe, and it's not because of what we had in the locker room, but it was because of what we had in our coach."

Shanahan's been known around the league as an offensive genius/guru, but Williams wants to make sure that everyone knows just how good of a leader and head coach he is when it comes to things beyond the offense.

"How he broke down the game, and how he just understood his team, and when to give days off, and when to push us through the times that we wanted days off. He has a keen understanding for how to treat a locker room and not sweating the small [expletive]," Williams said. "Making sure everybody is accountable. Making sure we all play with that same intensity, and if you don't, you're going to get called out. He isn't going to MF you in front of everybody. He's going to do it in his own way. But it makes you fee like 'Damn, I'm letting him down.' Not so much where I'm going to do this for him. I'm going to do it because I don't want to let him down. I know he's put his everything into this. I know he trusts me with this. I want to pay him back by being productive and executing his game plan. That's what he instills in us."

Williams spent 10 seasons in Washington (including four while Shanahan was the offensive coordinator), and he shared just how different things are for players under Shanahan's leadership.

"I tell people, me and Christian (McCaffrey) had the same conversation, I came here a 10-year vet," Williams explained. "I learned more just in that 30-minute team meeting with Kyle breaking down the next opponent, I learned more football in that time than I did the previous 10 years. You can ask anybody. They'll you the same thing... The way he breaks it down, it's literally like something you've never seen. Down to how the cornerback, where his weight is.

"The way he diagnoses football, I hate that everybody can't witness it because then it wouldn't be a question of who the best coach is in the league. Everybody would understand why. I hate that we're the only ones that get to see that, but I could sit here and talk about Kyle all day. He's like a brother to me."

Shanahan received just six first-place votes for the 2025 Coach of the Year Award and finished in fifth, behind Mike Vrabel, Liam Coen, Mike Macdonald and Ben Johnson.

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This article originally appeared on Niners Wire: 49ers' Trent Williams didn't hold back in his belief in Kyle Shanahan