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.”

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.’ ”

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.