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Warren Sharp: The 49ers Have the NFL's 17th-Best Offensive Line

Sharp's ranking indicates that the 49ers offensive line isn't terrible -- it's merely mediocre.

Grant Cohn

Jan 28, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) celebrates with guard Jon Feliciano (55) and offensive tackle Trent Williams (71) after a play against the Detroit Lions during the second half of the NFC Championship football game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 28, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) celebrates with guard Jon Feliciano (55) and offensive tackle Trent Williams (71) after a play against the Detroit Lions during the second half of the NFC Championship football game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports / Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
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The 49ers have one of the most loaded rosters in the NFL because they don't spend much on quarterbacks or offensive linemen.

Fortunately for them, their cheap starting quarterback, Brock Purdy, was an MVP candidate last season. But other than their future Hall of Fame left tackle Trent Williams who gets paid big bucks, none of the 49ers' bargain-bin starters on their offensive line are above-average players.

And that's why Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis recently ranked the 49ers offensive line 17th-best in the NFL.

Sharp's ranking indicates that the 49ers offensive line isn't terrible -- it's merely mediocre. But so much of their middling ranking depends on the presence of Williams, who misses at least two games every year. And when he's out, the 49ers might have the worst offensive line in the NFL. They're 3-6 since 2020 when Williams doesn't play.

And when Williams is on the field, the 49ers still have a worse offensive line than the Lions, the Eagles, the Chiefs, the Jets, the Packers, the Bengals, the Rams, the Texans, the Chargers and the Ravens. Which means of all the Super Bowl contenders, the 49ers have the worst offensive line. And that's not a good thing.

The 49ers offensive line is good enough to get the team to the Super Bowl but not good enough to win it. We've seen that multiple times. When the 49ers have reached the Super Bowl under Kyle Shanahan and faced Chris Jones and the Kansas City Chiefs defensive line, the 49ers O-line has crumbled like a sandcastle.

Time to start spending more money on the big guys.

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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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