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Will Dominick Puni Start at Right Guard for the 49ers?

During Wednesday's practice, offensive line coach Chris Foerster screamed at Puni for a solid 45 seconds during a run-blocking drill.

Grant Cohn

Mar 2, 2024; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Kansas offensive lineman Dominick Puni (OL59) talks to the media during the 2024 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 2, 2024; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Kansas offensive lineman Dominick Puni (OL59) talks to the media during the 2024 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports / Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports
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On the surface, Dominick Puni seems like the clear favorite to start at right guard this year.

The rookie third-round pick has taken almost all of the first-team reps at right guard in training camp because Spencer Burford broke his hand and Jon Feliciano is recovering from a knee injury. So Puni is the starting right guard by default right now. But that doesn't mean he'll keep the job.

During Wednesday's practice, offensive line coach Chris Foerster screamed at Puni for a solid 45 seconds during a run-blocking drill. Puni apparently didn't use the technique that Foerster was teaching and so Foerster exploded.

Which means Puni might not be such a lock to start at right guard as a rookie. Remember, he never played right guard in college, so he's learning a new position. And while he's supposed to be strong in pass protection, run-blocking will be an adventure for him because he's new to the 49ers' outside zone blocking scheme.

And that's why I don't expect Puni to start this season. The 49ers are a run-first team and their offensive linemen have to be run-blocking specialists who fit their zone-blocking scheme. That's not Puni yet. Maybe it will be him by the end of the season. But for now, the 49ers best option when healthy is Feliciano. He's a good run blocker and he's solid enough in pass protection. That's why the 49ers offense improved noticeably when Feliciano replaced Burford in the starting lineup midseason.

It's unclear when Feliciano will return, but the right guard job is his to lose.

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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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