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Spencer Burford Could Start at Left Guard for the 49ers in 2025

Burford has an opportunity to start at left guard, and the 49ers might be inclined to give him the job considering they'll have to pay him $3,325,000 this season. That's a lot of money to do nothing.

Grant Cohn

Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Spencer Burford (74) after defeating the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Spencer Burford (74) after defeating the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
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Aaron Banks will be a free agent this offseason and his replacement already could be on the 49ers' roster.

Spencer Burford appears to be the favorite to start at left guard in 2025 barring an unexpected investment in the position. The 49ers generally don't splurge on guards which is one reason they probably won't re-sign Banks -- starting offensive linemen are expensive on the open market.

Burford didn't start for the 49ers this season, but he did start 29 regular season games at right guard from 2022 to 2023. Keep in mind, he played left tackle in college and he's still just 24 years old, so the transition to guard wasn't always a smooth one for Burford. He didn't always play full games when he was the starter -- the 49ers often rotated him with a veteran. Then Burford injured his hand last offseason and lost his starting job to Dominick Puni.

Now Burford has an opportunity to start at left guard, and the 49ers might be inclined to give him the job considering they'll have to pay him $3,325,000 this season. That's a lot of money to do nothing. The 49ers probably want him to play and earn his salary.

Burford is entering the final year of his contract and probably will sign elsewhere when he becomes a free agent in 2026. So the 49ers could draft a guard to replace Burford down the line. But I would expect Burford to be in the 49ers' starting lineup Week 1.

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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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