Niners Nation
Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar writes about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment, we focus on San Francisco 49ers left tackle Austen Pleasants, who went from NFL afterthought to Trent Williams replacement in the blink of an eye — and did a great job in the process.
At this point, the San Francisco 49ers’ injury situation borders on the hilariously insane. Kyle Shanahan’s team hasn’t had Nick Bosa since Week 3, they haven’t had Fred Warner since Week 6, they haven’t had first-round pass-rusher Mykel Williams since Week 9, George Kittle was out for multiple weeks early in the season as was Brock Purdy, Brandon Aiyuk hasn’t been around all season for whatever reasons on Earth, and when Trent Williams went out of the 49ers’ Week 17 game against the Chicago Bears on Sunday night… well, a certain Jim Carrey meme came to mind.
Still, the 49ers had to shore it all up again, even with the future first-ballot Hall of Famer out with a hamstring issue, because they needed to keep pace with the Seattle Seahawks if Saturday’s Week 18 matchup would decide the NFC’s one-seed. This they did in a 42-38 win that was one of the most thrilling games of the 2025 season.
And who was it to replace Trent Williams? That would be Austen Pleasants, the 2020 undrafted free agent out of Ohio University who spent his first five NFL seasons bouncing on and off the practice squads of the (deep breath) Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers, Los Angeles Chargers, Chicago Bears, Arizona Cardinals, the Chargers (again), the Cardinals (again), and the Bears (again).
It wasn’t until December 17, 2024, when the 49ers signed him to their practice squad, that Pleasants began to find any sense of order in his professional career. San Francisco re-signed Pleasants to a one-year, $960,000 contract in April of 2025, and before Sunday’s game, Pleasants had played a grand total of 12 offensive snaps in the 2025 season. This was primarily because Williams had been so durable until the seemingly inevitable happened.
And it wasn’t as if Pleasants looked like a Secret Superstar in 2024; he allowed four pressures in 67 overall snaps. Now, he was replacing the best left tackle of his era… in a must-win game… against a Bears defense without a truly dominant pass rusher, but a defense that can mess you up schematically with pressure if you’re not used to what you’re seeing.
No big deal, right?
At first, it looked as if it would be a big deal. With 9:41 left in the first half, Pleasants tried to get aggressive in his pass protection plan against Chicago edge-rusher Austin Booker, which allowed Booker to beat his man around the edge, and take Brock Purdy down with a show-off sack. Pleasants also allowed Booker to get around him for a hurry of Purdy with 11:33 left in the fourth quarter....
