The San Francisco 49ers were without star left tackle Trent Williams for the fourth straight game as they took on the Los Angeles Rams Football on Thursday evenings.
That absence led to a rather unfortunate moment when Prime Video analyst Kirk Herbstreit misidentified another player on the 49ers’ sideline as Williams.
Late in the first quarter, Herbstreit and play-by-play announcer Al Michaels began discussing the problems of the Niners’ offensive line when a camera spotted a shirtless black player with a large beard standing on the San Francisco sideline. As the camera lingered on the player, a graphic for Trent Williams, who is also Black and has a beard, appeared below him.
“There’s Trent Williams, who is a big part of the strength of this offensive line.” – Kirk Herbstreit
One small problem… that was, uh, not Trent Williams…
(image or embed)
— Terrible Announcement (@awfulanncreasing.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 5:58 pm
“There’s Trent Williams, who is a big part of the offensive line,” Herbstreit said. “And they miss him up front.”
As many NFL media members were quick to point out, this man was not, in fact, Trent Williams.
Trent Williams looks different.
– Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) December 13, 2024
Why do you have TV rights but don’t know what Trent Williams looks like? pic.twitter.com/mq7k5FmyVB
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) December 13, 2024
Um, Thursday night football, that black man is NOT Trent Williams.
I repeat, the wrong black guy. @49ers pic.twitter.com/4NU8N8dVEP
— Emmanuel Acho (@EmmanuelAcho) December 13, 2024
The player pictured was Nesta Jade Silvera, a second-year defensive tackle who signed with San Francisco’s practice squad in October.
This doesn’t look good for both Herbststreit and Prime Video. While Kirk will certainly take the lion’s share of criticism, this segment was clearly prepared by the production team, as they had already trained the camera on Silvera and had the visuals ready. We have to imagine that someone in this stock truck is in big trouble right now.
Late in the second quarter, the broadcast actually found the real Trent Williams sitting in a suite.
Eventually they found the real Trent Williams… pic.twitter.com/yFj7LDtuQb
– Awful Announcement (@awfulanncreasing) December 13, 2024
We’ll see if Herbstreit or Prime Video make any statement during or after the game.
(Prime Video)
