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Grading the 49ers Offensive Linemen at the Bye Week

This group used to be the weakness of the team. Now it's a strength.

Grant Cohn

Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers guard Dominick Puni (77) blocks New York Jets defensive end Solomon Thomas (left) during the first quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers guard Dominick Puni (77) blocks New York Jets defensive end Solomon Thomas (left) during the first quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
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The 49ers have the week off, so let's grade them position by position based solely on what they've done this season. So far, we've graded the quarterback, the running backs, the wide receivers and the tight ends.

POSITION: Offensive line

NAMES: Trent Williams, Aaron Banks, Jake Brendel, Dominick Puni, Colton McKivitz, Spencer Burford.

GRADES: B-Plus

COMMENTS: This essentially is the same offensive line as last season, except the 49ers replaced Spencer Burford and Jon Feliciano at right guard with rookie Dominick Puni, who already is the second-best pass blocker on the offensive line after Trent Williams. Puni will be a fixture on the team for years to come. He's already a Pro Bowl caliber player.

Speaking of Williams, he's still great, although not quite as great as he was last season. He's 36 and he hardly ever practices anymore. Plus he missed the entire offseason, he was a bit rusty to start the season.

As a whole, this group is terrific at run blocking. Even Aaron Banks, Jake Brendel and Colton McKivitz are good run blockers who fit the 49ers' zone-blocking scheme. In pass protection, those three can struggle if left one-on-one against quality pass rushers. But Banks and McKivitz have improved in pass protection and are ascending players. As opposed to Brendel, who's on the downside of his career at 32 years old. The 49ers should start looking for his heir apparent at center.

Still, this group used to be the weakness of the team. Now it's a strength.

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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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