Add a significant shoulder injury into the calculus of re-signing enigmatic right tackle Trent Brown. The 49ers can start negotiating a new deal for him once the season ends, and it’s a complete mystery what kind of money any NFL team, including the 49ers will offer him.
Brown appears ticketed to be the team’s eventual left tackle after Joe Staley retires. However, Staley seems to have at least a few more years left in him, barring a rapid deterioration of his chronic knee problem.
Brown has all the physical traits to be a left tackle for the ages. He’s remarkably nimble for a man 6-8 and somewhere between 340 and 380 pounds. He uses his long arms well and no one other than Von Miller said he was one of the best in the game. Here’s what Miller said after some joint practices with the 49ers in 2016.
” I feel like Trent Brown has a very bright future in the National Football League,” Miller said. “He’s 6’8, he knows how to use his arms, knows how to use his wingspan, he has length. So I feel like, he’s young, and people haven’t really seen him, but I feel like he’s one of the better tackles in the National Football League.”
Miller recently wrote a story for the Players’ Tribune saying that the toughest tackle he ever faced actually was another Trent – Washington’s Trent Williams. Miller called Williams “the toughest guy on the field every single play.”
And that’s what may be lacking in Trent Brown’s game. He has battled weight, at times he plays as if he’s disinterested. It also looked from the amatuer point of view that he gained weight during the season after reporting to training camp relatively trim.
So how will the NFL view a player who could dominate at the crucial tackle position, but may lack passion? Some teams feel confident they can get a player to lock in and love the game. If that’s the case, the 49ers are unlikely to re-sign Brown. if the 49ers do re-sign him, it probably won’t be to a long-term deal. Instead the team could offer him a two-year deal with possibly an option for a third. That way, they can assess how Staley ages, and get more vital information on Brown.
Will his weight continue to be an issue? Will passion for the game develop?
What’s also unknown is how Brown feels about the 49ers. Does he feel they badger him about his weight? Does he like offensive line coach John Benton? What doeshe think of Shanahan? Does he feel comfortable with his teammates?
Then there’s the shoulder injury. It’s a labrum issue, and it’s likely to require surgery. Shanahan explained that some players will tear a labrum and play through it their entire careers. Others will need surgery right away. The 49ers were hoping that the pain would reduce enough to where Brown could play with it, but that didn’t happen. It could be a case of where the labrum tear is and how much it affects movement of the arm and shoulder.
Shanahan also said shoulder injuries and their surgeries are big deals. They require long recovery periods and sometimes they don’t take. Look at Andrew Luck.
That’s another factor in signing Brown. While signing Jimmy Garoppolo won’t be easy, signing Brown might be
even more difficult, because establishing a starting point for the negotiations will be hard to pinpoint. The 49ers also hate to sign bad contracts, in fact they haven’t signed one for years, with the possible exception of linebacker NaVorro Bowman.
Brown could have “bad signing” written all over him, and is that a risk the 49ers are willing to take?