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Mykel Williams was Extremely Impressive at 49ers Rookie Minicamp

You can't tell everything about a person from a first impression, but you can tell a lot.

Grant Cohn

May 9, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman Mykel Williams (98) bats at a ball as part of a rushing drill during the teamís rookie minicamp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
May 9, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman Mykel Williams (98) bats at a ball as part of a rushing drill during the teamís rookie minicamp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images / D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
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You can't tell everything about a person from a first impression, but you can tell a lot.

Some first-round picks wanted to be treated like they're special during rookie minicamp. Other first-round picks don't really want to work. Mykel Williams didn't fall into either category.

You wouldn't have known that Williams was a first-round pick from the way he carried himself. He was quiet and serious and he participated in every drill from start to finish. He had the work ethic and drive of an undrafted free agent trying to prove himself and make the team.

But when you watch him move, you easily can see that he's the best football player on the field by far. He's built like a young Aldon Smith in the sense that he's tall, long, lean and extremely powerful. At one point, he knocked a coach on his back by accident and had to help him back up.

But Aldon Smith never seemed to love practice the way Williams seemed to love it during rookie minicamp. Smith wasn't the type of player who could be a captain and set a standard for effort during practice. Williams clearly is that kind of player. And the 49ers need more talented players who love to practice considering many of their older veterans don't want to practice much anymore.

You can tell that Williams comes from a premium college program that molds its players into complete football players who truly love the sport, not one-trick ponies who are hunting paydays.

The 49ers got a good one.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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