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49ers Rookie Right Guard Dominick Puni is Having a Pro Bowl Season

The 49ers struck gold in Round 3 of the NFL Draft this year.

Grant Cohn

Sep 15, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; San Francisco 49ers guard Dominick Puni (77) looks on during the game against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images
Sep 15, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; San Francisco 49ers guard Dominick Puni (77) looks on during the game against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images / Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images
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The 49ers struck gold in Round 3 of the NFL Draft this year.

They took Dominick Puni, who played every position on the offensive line except right guard in college, and immediately moved him to right guard. Now he's the second-best offensive lineman on the team after future Hall of Fame left tackle Trent Williams.

"It's amazing," Williams said after the 49ers' 36-24 win over the Seattle Seahawks. "I didn't know he didn't play right guard in college. Which is crazy because he literally has the makings of a Pro Bowl player at that position. He's a godsend. He's a really really good kid, really really professional. He gained his teammates' respect just from how he carries himself."

Puni helped seal the victory over the Seahawks with a crucial block during Isaac Guerendo's 76-yard run up the right sideline in the fourth quarter. On that play, Puni made the key block that sprung Guerendo into the open field.

For the past couple seasons, the 49ers have been virtually unable to run the ball to the right side of their formations because their offensive linemen haven't been good enough. Now Puni gives them the ability to run to the right side, which makes the 49ers offense so much more difficult in the stop. In the past, defenses would bring a safety down into the box near Trent Williams anticipating the running back to follow him. Now the 49ers can run away from Williams as they did on the game-winning 76-yard run.

If Puni keeps it up, he'll deserve to go to the Pro Bowl at the end of the 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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