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Projecting the 49ers' Starting Offensive Line for 2025

OTAs start a week from Tuesday.
Grant Cohn|
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers guard Dominick Puni (77) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers guard Dominick Puni (77) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

OTAs start a week from Tuesday. Here's what the 49ers depth chart will look like on the offensive line for their first live practices of the offseason.

LT: Trent Williams, Andre Dillard, Isaac Alarcon
LG: Ben Bartch, Spencer Burford, Connor Colby, Zack Johnson
C: Jake Brendel, Matt Hennessy, Drake Nugent
RG: Dominick Puni, Nick Zakelj, Drew Moss
RT: Colton McKivitz, Nicholas Petit-Frere, Austen Pleansants, Sebastian Gutierrez

Analysis: The 49ers said Trent Williams showed up to Phase 1 but didn't show any pictures of him and he didn't speak to the media. It's unclear if he intends to show up to OTAs and practice. If he doesn't, Andre Dillard will take the first-string reps at left tackle. Dillard is a former first-round pick but he has started only 19 games during his career and he'll turn 30 in October.

At left guard, Ben Bartch, Spencer Burford and Connor Colby all will compete for the job. I'm guessing Burford will win the job because he's the most durable and experienced of the three, although he's not really a starting-caliber player. Don't be surprised if he and Bartch share playing time at left guard. They're cheap, but they're also not as good as last year's starter, Aaron Banks. This position is a downgrade.

A center, Jake Brendel will turn 33 in September and the 49ers don't have an heir apparent for him on the roster.

At right guard, Dominick Puni is one of the best young talents in the NFL.

And at right tackle, the 49ers have Colton McKivitz, who's a low-level starter, and Nicholas Petit-Frere, who's a high-level backup.

Overall, this unit is worse than last year's offensive line, which was the weakest link on the offense. Letting Banks leave and replacing him with his backups was an uninspired move. And replacing Jaylon Moore with Andre Dillard was another downgrade.

You'd think the 49ers would want a good offensive line before giving their quarterback more than $50 million per season.

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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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