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Who Will Start at Left Guard for the 49ers in 2025?

This season, Spencer Burford's base salary will jump to $3.4 million, and I doubt the 49ers want to pay him to sit on the bench.
Grant Cohn|
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Spencer Burford (74) watches the action from the sideline in the third quarter against the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Spencer Burford (74) watches the action from the sideline in the third quarter against the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images | David Gonzales-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers have to find someone to replace Aaron Banks as their starting left guard.

Banks recently signed a four-year, $77 million deal with the Green Bay Packers and left a void in San Francisco's offensive line. So who will fill it?

The favorite probably is fourth-year guard Spencer Burford. He started 29 games at right guard the first two seasons of his career but lost his job last year to rookie Dominick Puni, who was outstanding.

This season, Burford's base salary will jump to $3.4 million, and I doubt the 49ers want to pay him to sit on the bench. They're being extremely frugal all of a sudden. So he'll have to earn his pay on the field.

The 49ers also signed veteran guard Ben Bartch this offseason to a one-year deal worth nearly $1.2 million. Based on his contract, he's expected to be the backup. He's a former fourth-round pick who's only 26, so he could potentially beat out Burford for the job. But Bartch has had lots of injuries and hasn't proven he can stay healthy for a full season.

In addition to Burford and Bartch, the 49ers almost certainly will draft a guard. Don't be shocked if they take one in Round 3, because that's where they got Puni last year and he was a huge success.

But the rookie might not play right away. The only reason Puni started Week 1 last season is because Burford missed training camp with a broken right hand. Head coach Kyle Shanahan typically prefers not to play rookies unless he has to.

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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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