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Why the 49ers Should Sign Trent Brown

The 49ers never should have traded Brown in the first place.

Grant Cohn

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The 49ers have needed a right tackle ever since they traded Trent Brown to the Patriots in 2018. It's time to bring him back.

Brown is a 30-year-old free agent and he's still good, although he misses a few games every season. For that reason, the 49ers should be able to sign him to a one-year deal as a temporary stop gap while a younger offensive tackle develops on the bench.

The 49ers never should have traded Brown in the first place. Kyle Shanahan inherited him but didn't feel he fit the 49ers' zone-blocking scheme, so he traded Brown and a fourth-round pick to New England in exchange for a third-round pick which the 49ers used on safety Tarvarius Moore, who was a bust.

To replace Brown, the 49ers used a top-10 pick on Mick McGlinchey, who also was a bust. A mentally and physically weak player to whom the 49ers did not offer a contract extension.

Brown always has been better than McGlinchey, just as Brown always has been better than Colton McKivitz, the 49ers' current right tackle. McKivitz is mentally and physically tough, unlike McGlinchey, but McKivitz simply isn't athletic enough to be a quality offensive tackle.

Brown is extremely athletic for a big man. His issues have been staying healthy and staying in shape. But if the 49ers can get him on a one-year deal, they don't have to rely on him, because they'll still have McKivitz, plus they can use their first-round pick on an offensive tackle as well.

Fix this offensive line already. It's been long enough.

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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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