It’s time to move Trent Williams after agent’s statement

The Washington Redskins have needed to trade Trent Williams for quite some time now. They haven’t, and now the long-time left tackle’s agent is sounding off on the team and reaffirming Williams’ demand to be traded or released.

On Monday, the Washington Redskins were active on the NFL trade market. They traded Quinton Dunbar to the Seattle Seahawks and acquired backup quarterback Kyle Allen from the Carolina Panthers. Both trades involved fifth-round picks.

Seeing both of those trades occur made perfect sense. The Redskins needed a backup quarterback, so that’s why they acquired Allen. Meanwhile, Dunbar had demanded a trade and while the team should’ve tried to get more for him in a deal, it made sense to offload him as Ron Rivera tries to reshape the team culture and clubhouse with players that are buying into his mission.

That said, it’s curious as to why the team hasn’t traded Trent Williams yet. The long-time left tackle and former first-round pick of the Redskins way back in 2010 missed all of last season amid a holdout and has stated that he no longer wants to play for the team. At this point, the Redskins need to trade him just to move on from the situation.

However, so far they haven’t been willing to do that, as they haven’t gotten back what they perceived to be fair value for him. That’s all well and good, but the relationship between Williams and the franchise is becoming more strained as a result.

On Tuesday morning, Vincent Taylor, Williams’ agent, released a statement regarding the Williams situation via ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The statement reiterated Williams’ love for his time with the Redskins but that both sides need to move on.

This certainly isn’t good news for the Redskins. While it was known that Williams was on the trade market, this statement will only serve to hurt his value as the Redskins are rapidly losing leverage. The little that they had, to begin with, was that Williams is still under contract and is being paid a more-than-reasonable $12.5 million in the final year of his deal. So hypothetically, they could hold onto Williams if there wasn’t a deal available to their liking.

The problem with that is that Williams has shown a willingness to hold out in the past. And he may do it again if he truly is done with the team. The Redskins can’t afford to take that risk, so they should really try to offload Williams ASAP to keep this issue from lingering. He had a great career with the Redskins, but both sides just need a fresh start.

The reason that Washington is holding out to make a Williams deal isn’t necessarily a bad one. They’re trying to get the best compensation for him, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, but that just isn’t lining up.

It’s good that the ‘Skins are trying to get the most for Williams. But given that they just gave up Quinton Dunbar, a younger player and their top corner, for a fifth-round pick just to get rid of someone who was becoming an issue as the team tries to reshape their culture, they have to consider offloading Williams for what they can get.

Hopefully, that will be more than what the team got for Dunbar. But if Ron Rivera wants his message to clearly be that players who don’t buy in don’t stick around, the Redskins simply have to move Williams sooner rather than later.

We’ll see if the team works hard to move Williams and gets a trade done in the coming days. For the time being, though, this is certainly something to watch as the ‘Skins reshape their roster ahead of a big-time rebuilding year.