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The Deepest Position Group on the 49ers

The 49ers still have an established core of Pro Bowl veterans, but their depth is worse than it has been in years.
Grant Cohn|
Jun 11, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterbacks Mac Jones (10) and Brock Purdy (13) work on passing drills during a team OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
Jun 11, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterbacks Mac Jones (10) and Brock Purdy (13) work on passing drills during a team OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers still have an established core of Pro Bowl veterans, but their depth is worse than it has been in years.

That's because the 49ers just gave Brock Purdy a five-year, $265 million contract extension. From 2022 to 2024, they paid him less than $3 million -- he was the biggest bargain in professional sports. Even some college football players made more money than Purdy.

This allowed the 49ers to spend lots of money on the rest of the roster, which is how they amassed the best roster in the NFL just two years ago. Now, many of those players are gone, and Purdy has to pick up the slack.

Unfortunately for Purdy, the offensive line is the thinnest position group on the team. It's one injury to Trent Williams away from being the undisputed worst offensive line in the NFL.

Instead of investing in the offensive line and protecting their investment in Purdy, the 49ers invested in the quarterback position in case Purdy gets injured. They signed former first-round pick Mac Jones to a two-year deal. He has been to the playoffs, a Pro Bowl and has more starting experience than Purdy.

In addition, the 49ers drafted quarterback Kurtis Rourke in Round 7 this year. Rourke is a tall pocket passer who can scramble and make anticipatory passes over the middle, which means he fits their system. So if Purdy were to go down for a few games or crash and burn entirely as the 49ers' franchise quarterback, they'll have other options at the position.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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