Jonah Williams’ trade market not developing; Zac Taylor hopes he will ‘come in and compete at right tackle’

The Cincinnati Bengals made a stellar move when they were able to land Orlando Brown Jr. to play left tackle this offseason. The move was meant to improve two positions of issue, as Jonah Williams could theoretically move to the right side of the offensive line.

That was until Williams requested a trade to avoid such a move and stay at left tackle.

We got a bit of an update as to how that is going with some insiders getting some information from the owners’ meeting. Armando Salguero from Out Kick had this to report:

But a funny thing has happened to Williams en route to being traded: No one has so far been interested in giving up a high draft pick for the 25-year-old player.

“He’s not a big man with long arms and he plays like it,” one NFL general manager told OutKick. “He might not even be a tackle.”

So who trades for a player perhaps best suited to play an interior position when he’s insisting on playing left tackle? So far, nobody.

That isn’t exactly promising for the Bengals or Williams. It sounds like Williams may have a tough time getting to continue his career at left tackle no matter what. Cincinnati is also less inclined to grant his request without a serious return involved.

This leads to a few difficult scenarios that will require one side to concede, though Zac Taylor is hoping Williams will return and compete to be the right tackle.

“I like everything about Jonah. I’m excited to see him come in and compete at right tackle,” Taylor told Geoff Hobson from Bengals.com. “He’s always been everything we wanted him to be about. We’ve never had issues with him. Hopefully, we can work through this, and he can come in and compete at right tackle for us. That’s what we’re counting on him to do … He’s never been an issue, and I don’t anticipate that being an issue.”

That seems like the most likely thing to happen at this point, though it looks like we shouldn’t plan on seeing any action anytime soon in this standoff.