Projecting the 49ers' Starting Lineup on Offense

The 49ers offense ranked 3rd in yards and 2nd in points last season.

Grant Cohn | Jun 30, 2024

Nov 12, 2023; Jacksonville, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers offense huddles around quarterback Brock Purdy (13) against Jacksonville Jaguars during the second quarter at EverBank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Morgan Tencza-USA TODAY Sports / Morgan Tencza-USA TODAY Sports

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers offense ranked 3rd in yards and 2nd in points last season. Here are the players who are projected to start on offense in 2024.

Quarterback: Brock Purdy.

He's the franchise quarterback. The 49ers don't have anyone to compete with him for the starting job.

Running back: Christian McCaffrey.

He'll be the starting running back for the next four seasons barring injury considering he just signed an extension through 2027. The key to keeping him healthy will be to limit his carries as much as possible.

Fullback: Kyle Juszczyk.

This could be his final season on the team. And even though he's still a starter, he might not player 50 percent of the offensive snaps considering he'll have to split playing time with Jauan Jennings and Ricky Pearsall.

X receiver: Brandon Aiyuk.

Aiyuk might hold out for a few games and the 49ers might trade him midseason if he doesn't agree to a contract extension, but he almost certainly will be on the roster Week 1.

Z receiver: Deebo Samuel.

Like Juszczyk, this could be Samuel's final season on the team. He's clearly declining.

Tight end: George Kittle.

George Kittle's body is beginning to break down but the 49ers have no one who can replace him.

Left tackle: Trent Williams.

He's the best, oldest and most important player on the team and he hasn't played a full season since 2013.

Left guard: Aaron Banks.

He's an average starting guard who missed two games last season and probably will leave as a free agent next year.

Center: Jake Brendel.

He's a soon-to-be 32-year-old with knee tendonitis who's coming off a down year. But he's still their best option at center.

Right guard: Jon Feliciano.

The 49ers re-signed him to a one-year deal because they don't believe their young guards are ready to play.

Right tackle: Colton McKivitz.

One of the worst pass-protecting offensive tackles in the NFL, but he's cheap, so the 49ers extended his contract.

Published Jun 21, 2024|Modified Jun 30, 2024

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.