Back in April 2020, under a veil of secrecy and in the nick of time, the 49ers spirited future Hall of Fame left tackle Trent Williams away from Washington, which is still probably the craftiest personnel move of the Kyle Shanahan-John Lynch era.
And on Tuesday, almost exactly a half-decade later, also with very little warning and also potentially filling a vacancy on the tackle depth chart, the 49ers signed 2015 first-round pick D.J. Humphries, which, let’s be clear, most assuredly will not land in the pantheon of 49ers dealmaking.
The scale of these two moves, of course, is far from comparable. The 36-year-old Williams remains one of the league’s very best players at any position. Humphries, 31, has been mostly just a decent starter through his career. After tearing his ACL while with the Cardinals in 2023, Humphries signed with the Chiefs before last season and only played two games. Now, he projects as this season’s swing tackle behind Williams and right tackle Colton McKivitz.
However, there’s an important connection between these moves. Shanahan and Lynch have very specific ideas about the tackle position, which means they often need to take complicated and indirect routes to bolster the position.
The 2020 Williams move showed they could operate ingeniously on this level. Five years later, with a desperate need for a new swing tackle after the free-agent departure of Jaylon Moore, the 49ers showed that they still can make plans and execute them quietly — and do it once free-agent signings no longer count against the yearly compensatory draft pick formula.
My conclusion: Add the Humphries addition to last week’s well-thought-out 11-player draft and to George Kittle’s new record-breaking contract extension and just in the last few days there’s suddenly evidence that Shanahan and Lynch are back running the personnel shop.
The payroll purge happened last month. It was directed by the 49ers’ financial side as Shanahan and Lynch mostly looked on as spectators. But now it’s over.
And these are all positive signs for the two big-box items the 49ers have left on their offseason list: Getting Brock Purdy and Fred Warner signed to reasonable long-term extensions before the start of training camp in late July — or, preferably for everybody, by next month’s minicamp.
The 49ers wouldn’t be committing $19.1 million a year to Kittle into his mid-30s if they didn’t believe they’d have Purdy signed up to throw to him for all those years. I’ve heard for months that both sides can see a logical path to a deal — something near $50-52 million per year with a guarantee near $150 million —and Purdy showing up for the start of the offseason program last week backs that up. Also, the 49ers probably wouldn’t have finished up the Kittle deal now if they weren’t trying to turn their attention to the Warner negotiations.
There are still steps to take. The purge weakened the roster in ways that can’t be fully understood until everybody lines up on the field in camp — or when the usual injury waves begin to hit. Maybe many of the new draftees can step right into large roles right away. Maybe not. We’ll all see about that in camp.
But those are football decisions. This seems like a team that’s trying to build up the roster again, not tear it down. If you want to look at it optimistically, this feels like a team that has mostly gotten its finances where it wants them and now can budget new deals for the players who need them.
Of course, as is their custom, Shanahan and Lynch didn’t draft a tackle to back up both Williams and McKivitz, eventually replace McKivitz after next season, and be a strong candidate to step into Williams’ crucial spot whenever he chooses to retire.
The tricky part is that Shanahan is very particular about tackles — they have to be fast, smart, and lanky to pass his muster. Which means there are usually only three or four per draft class who make it through the 49ers’ checklist. Sometimes fewer than that. So they haven’t selected a tackle higher than the fifth round since they took Mike McGlinchey ninth overall in 2018.
As Shanahan said after the draft last weekend, the 49ers had a few tackles circled at a few spots in this draft, but each time they were ready to pounce, a team drafting ahead of them grabbed the one they wanted. I don’t know if this is one of the examples, but let’s note that right before the 49ers used the 100th pick to select cornerback Upton Stout, the Raiders took tackles Caleb Rogers and Charles Grant 98th and 99th respectively.
If you’re going to be that picky about tackles, you need to either be ready to trade up to make sure you get one of the few guys you like or you need a plan to get veteran replacements when you start to run out of them on the roster. Trent Williams was the classic move — acquired for third and fifth-round picks right before the 49ers announced that Joe Staley was retiring. I don’t think there will be any surprise retirement announcements following the Humphries signing, but it’s pretty clear that this was in the works for a little while.
It makes football sense. It feels like a decision made by football people, who want to win as many games as they can this season and want all of their key players signed up and in camp ASAP. And yes, if you were waiting for things to finally calm down in 49ers land, you’re getting the “all-clear” signals right now.