It's been years since San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and offensive tackle Trent Williams were with Washington. Despite some difficult memories from their time with the organization, neither appears to harbor any lingering resentment toward the team now known as the Commanders.
The 49ers will host the Commanders on Monday night, and Shanahan and Williams are focused on the task at hand. Their goal is to help San Francisco improve to 6-0, not revisit the past.
Shanahan served as Washington's offensive coordinator from 2010 through 2013. He and his father, Mike Shanahan, who was the team's head coach, were fired the day after the 2013 season ended.
There may have been added motivation to beat Washington earlier in Shanahan's tenure as the 49ers' head coach, but enough time has passed for the matchup to lose that emotional weight.
"I don't even think about that at all anymore," Shanahan said on Saturday. "That was more personal with those things, but I love some of the people I know in Washington. [Head coach] Dan Quinn, [general manager] Adam Peters, it seems like they're doing a really good job with the organization."
Williams also had well-documented issues with Washington, particularly over how the organization handled his cancer diagnosis. The 49ers acquired the veteran tackle in a 2020 trade.
For Williams, being asked about his time in Washington can remind him of a chapter of his career that now feels very distant.
"Sometimes I forget that I even played there," Williams told reporters, smiling. "I've been here going on seven years, so I only played nine seasons there. I was there 10 years, and I played nine seasons. It's been almost just as much time here as I have there."
Shanahan and Williams' time in Washington overlapped, and Williams still remembers his first impressions of the coach.
"It was my first time ever being around a coach of any sort that was that close to my age, that wore Jordan shorts, or Jordans, was like laid back and cool," Williams said. "Back then, coaches, there was a rite of passage you had to go through, and most of the time, by the time you got to have your own room or coordinator job, you was mid to late 40s. That's kind of how all the coaches looked around that time.
"So, having Kyle being a younger, kind of like a breath of fresh air, in the midst of his dad, who's very, very old school. We had Bobby [Turner], had a lot of coaches that were very old school. Then you had Kyle, who was kind of cool like the other side of the pillow. It was unique, and I enjoyed it."
Whatever happened in Washington is in the past, and Monday night's matchup gives Shanahan and Williams another chance to keep San Francisco's strong start to the season going.
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