After 25 years spent covering the 49ers and the National Football League, Bay Area News Group sports writer Cam Inman has a new book coming out. “The Franchise: San Francisco 49ers” lands on Sept. 24, offering insights and anecdotes from past and modern-era football stars and forewords written by Frank Gore and George Kittle. The following excerpt, shared by Triumph Books, focuses on Patrick Willis and honors his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction this year.
Patrick Willis’ retirement from the San Francisco 49ers came like one of his signature tackles: a sudden, hard hitting, ground-shaking impact. “Speed kills, and to have running back speed at 238 pounds is remarkable,” former 49ers linebacker Gary Plummer said upon Willis’ March 2015 retirement. “He was so aggressive. What you want as a linebacker is no wasted steps.”
Willis’ feet cruelly ran out of steps before he could finish his eighth season as one of the NFL’s best-ever linebackers. Even after his toe surgery in November 2014, Willis hoped to prolong his days in a No. 52 jersey. He relayed to his fans via Instagram that he was determined to get back on the field, to be better than ever and that “the road back starts now.”
Alas, that was the end of the road in a career that began with him winning NFL Rookie of the Year honors in 2007, with a league-leading 174 tackles for a 5–11 team. Seven straight Pro Bowl nods came his way, as did six All-Pro selections up until that final 2014 season, which was limited to six games. At age 30, however, he was done. “I always heard [NFL] football was for Not For Long,” Willis said in May 2023. “Whether it ended tomorrow or four years from now, I wanted to be able to evaluate and stop and say, ‘Look at this time. I was giving it everything I had.’ That’s what I was graded on — not what could have been, what I should have done. Take what you see and do what you will with it.”
“The Franchise” by Cam Inman (Triumph Books, 2024)
Various Halls of Fame beckoned. The year he retired from the NFL, his alma mater welcomed him into the Ole Miss Sports Hall of Fame. Four years later, he was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame. In 2021, the 49ers ushered him into their Edward J. DeBartolo Sr. 49ers Hall of Fame, complete with a statue of him celebrating a tackle. In 2023, Willis entered the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (BASHOF) alongside San Francisco Giants baseball star Buster Posey, who took the Bay Area by storm alongside Steph Curry in their prime. The Pro Football Hall of Fame passed in his first four years of eligibility, but he earned induction in 2024. “He was a throwback player that could have played in our era, could have played with Ronnie Lott, could have played with Dick Butkus,” said Plummer, a 49ers linebacker from 1994 to 1997 who served as their radio color analyst as Willis helped build a playoff contender. “He wasn’t a showboat. He went out and was a beast on the field.” Mike Singletary, who had a hand in Willis’ development — begrudgingly at first — agreed. While presenting Willis at the 2023 BASHOF ceremony, Singletary recalled scouting Willis in college, how he saw an “okay” linebacker who often played hurt with bandages on his hand and knee and foot. “Then someone told me before his last year, he had a devastating situation where his brother drowned,” Singletary recalled. “Patrick played that year lights out. I didn’t really need to see any film on him after that. I said, ‘Man we have to get this guy.’ ”
Patrick Willis speaks during the Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium on Aug. 3, 2024, in Canton. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) Chicago Tribune photo
Singletary, a Hall of Fame linebacker with the Chicago Bears in the 1980s, joined the 49ers in 2005 as linebackers coach, eventually replacing Mike Nolan during the 2008 season. Coaching Willis wasn’t a pet project. It was a passion. Willis was drafted No. 11 overall, 17 spots before the 49ers found their franchise left tackle in Joe Staley. Willis would have to abandon his childhood ties rooting for the rival Dallas Cowboys. Two other things crossed his mind when he heard Singletary on a congratulatory call: bag drills in practice and California’s taxes. It was time to leave Tennessee, where his challenging childhood in Bruceton included an abusive, alcoholic father. Willis and his siblings would move in under the guardianship of his high school basketball coach, Chris Finley, and his wife, Julie. “I grew up watching ‘Baywatch’ and ‘Crocodile Dundee’ and being a kid from the South. It’s hot summers with some ponds, but you didn’t see the ocean,” Willis recalled. “I remember as a kid saying, ‘One day I want to live somewhere like that and drive a nice car on a nice open highway.’ Then I got drafted by the 49ers, and it wasn’t long before I had this moment. I walked out on my balcony, the sun was shining and hitting me just right. I said, ‘I’m having a real-time moment. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.’”
He made an instant impact all right. After Willis’ first practice, Singletary told Nolan: “This guy is going to be All-Pro this year.”
San Francisco 49ers inside linebacker Patrick Willis (52) emerges from the fog during player introduction before playing the Carolina Panthers at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 10, 2013. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
“Come on now, don’t overdo it, Mike,” Nolan responded.
“I’m telling you, man. I just came from Baltimore, coaching Ray Lewis, and I’m telling you: This guy has the ability to be the best ever.”
They’d already coached Willis in the Senior Bowl. So his potential wasn’t hidden, and even Nolan suggested on draft day how great it would be if Willis drew comparisons to Lewis “in three or four years.”
Well, four years later, Lewis, the Baltimore Ravens great, told ESPN that Willis “emulates me a lot. I just love the way he plays the game. He plays the game with a fire. He reminds me of myself — a lot, a lot, a lot.”
Willis thrived in a starring role on the 49ers’ defense, eventually forming an All-Pro tandem with NaVorro Bowman as the 49ers reached three consecutive NFC Championship Games in the 2011–13 seasons. Willis became only the third defensive player in NFL history to earn Pro Bowl berths in each of his first seven seasons. The others were Pro Football Hall of Famers Lawrence Taylor and Derrick Thomas. Ronnie Lott was the only other 49ers player to make the Pro Bowl in his first four seasons. “When you buckle the chin strap, there are no friends,” Willis said in 2023. “It’s straight business. It’s game time. I’d have to tell Marshawn [Lynch] that, because he’d try to talk between the lines and I’d say, ‘Man, stop talking to me. We’ll talk when the game’s over.’ It’s just about knowing what needs to get done and getting it done.”
Willis’ chatter was limited to pregame huddles. That’s where he would look at his teammates, give them a fierce look, and shout: “THIS! IS! THE! DAY!” He’d pause, shoot that look again, and continue: “The day that we put an end to all the critics!”
The best days, or at least the most meaningful and triumphant ones, came as Willis unknowingly entered the twilight of his career. He’d paid his dues before his first winning season came in 2011 with coach Jim Harbaugh and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio pulling the strings instead of Nolan and Singletary.
The 49ers were 9–1 when they marched into Baltimore on Thanksgiving night that 2011 season. They lost 16–6 to a Ravens team that didn’t suit up Lewis because —of all things —a toe injury. The following season Willis and the 49ers lost in the Super Bowl to the Ravens in Lewis’ final game as a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Patrick Willis #52 of the San Francisco 49ers intercepts a pass intended for Jason Witten #82 of the Dallas Cowboys in the first half at AT&T Stadium on September 7, 2014 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Willis’ finale unexpectedly came Oct. 13, 2014, in St. Louis, where his toe got caught in the Edward Jones Dome’s artificial turf amid a 31–17 victory against the Rams. The left toe, he revealed two days later, had bothered him for years, comparing it to the tread wearing thin on a car’s tires and preventing him from going full speed in case of a tire blowout. When it did blow out, and he had to retire, former NFL quarterback Matt Leinart posted on Twitter. “Still have a chipped tooth from [Willis] knocking me out,” he wrote “Congrats on a GREAT career man! Not a nicer guy out there!”
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Willis indeed got up and on with his life after his career’s abrupt ending. Ole Miss brought him back as a commencement speaker, prompting these inspiring words: “Purpose, vision and passion when aligned creates a force, a will that is hard to stop. So, for the Class of 2020, as you go forward, do it with purpose, do it with vision and do it with passion.”
As Bay Area native Tom Brady headed for his sixth Super Bowl win with the New England Patriots, a retired Willis couldn’t fathom what Brady was doing at age 41 — or envision him winning a seventh ring two years later with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “That’s crazy,” Willis said in a January 2019 interview. “Mentally, when I finished, I felt so old and tired. How can guys play forever like that all those years?”
In the end, it wasn’t about how long he played but rather how he played. With Willis’ blazing speed, brick-wall force and resilience in triumphing over life’s obstacles, his legacy is stamped forever in 49ers lore. “I saw this young man overcome one thing after another,” Singletary said. “Every time he got punched, every time he got knocked down, he just kept getting back up. I love a man that gets up every time.”
