{"id":493057,"date":"2026-10-11T23:30:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T23:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/493057\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T23:30:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T23:30:23","slug":"mykel-williams-returns-to-action-after-acl-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/493057\/","title":{"rendered":"Mykel Williams Returns to Action After ACL Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After nearly a year away from the field, San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman\u00a0<a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break:break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.49ers.com\/team\/players-roster\/mykel-williams\/\" title=\"Mykel Williams\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mykel Williams<\/a> is set to make his return.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, who suffered a season-ending ACL injury during his rookie campaign in 2025 in Week 9, is expected to make his 2026 season debut on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field.<\/p>\n<p>Selected by San Francisco with the 11th-overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft from Georgia, Williams made an immediate impact during his rookie year. He started all nine games he appeared in, recording a total of 20 tackles and one sack before his season was cut short by his injury.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m ready to go. I&#8217;m excited to play ball. I miss playing ball,&#8221; Williams said Wednesday. &#8220;It&#8217;s been a near year since I&#8217;ve played. I just want to get back on the field.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Williams underwent surgery on November 25, 2025, and spent the offseason working through the challenges of rehabilitation. Throughout the process, he leaned on fellow defensive lineman <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break:break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.49ers.com\/team\/players-roster\/nick-bosa\/\" title=\"Nick Bosa\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nick Bosa<\/a>, who has experienced ACL injuries of his own.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Bosa was great for my whole recovery process,&#8221; Williams said. &#8220;I was leaning on him so much, and he was willingly just offering me advice and just telling me little things to do different.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After two weeks back on the practice field, head coach Kyle Shanahan expressed confidence in Williams&#8217; progress.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s had a good two weeks. He was good last week and this week&#8217;s been even better,&#8221; Shanahan said Friday. &#8220;Ready to get him back out there on the field.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Williams&#8217; return provides another option along San Francisco&#8217;s defensive front, with Bosa and DL <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break:break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.49ers.com\/team\/players-roster\/james-thompson-jr\/\" title=\"James Thompson Jr.\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Thompson Jr.<\/a> ruled out for Sunday&#8217;s contest.<\/p>\n<p>Defensive coordinator Raheem Morris is eager to see Williams contribute both against the run and as a pass rusher.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s big, he gives us a lot of energy, gives a lot of juice,&#8221; Morris said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the first opponent he&#8217;ll face in his return, Williams wasn&#8217;t particularly concerned.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care who it was,&#8221; Williams said. &#8220;It could have been anybody. I&#8217;m just ready to play ball.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After nearly a year away from the field, San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman\u00a0Mykel Williams is set to make&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[51513,809,810,808,22370,100,22596,101,190555,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-493057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-brooke-evans","tag-english","tag-english-articles","tag-latest-app","tag-mykel-williams","tag-news","tag-player-siders","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers-at-seattle-seahawks-2026-reg-5","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}