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Would the 49ers Consider Moving Dominick Puni to Offensive Tackle?

Hands down, the 49ers' best rookie this season has been Dominick Puni.

Grant Cohn

Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers guard Dominick Puni (77) blocks New York Jets defensive end Solomon Thomas (left) during the first quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers guard Dominick Puni (77) blocks New York Jets defensive end Solomon Thomas (left) during the first quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
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Hands down, the 49ers' best rookie this season has been Dominick Puni.

They took him in Round 3 and he wasn't supposed to start right away. But in training camp, both Jon Feliciano and Spencer Burford got injured, which created an opening at right guard, a position Puni never had played before. Now, he's one of the best right guards in the league.

This week, 49ers offensive line coach Christ Foerster was asked if Puni is talented enough to switch positions again and move to offensive tackle.

“Puni is outstanding," Foerster said. "He's doing a really good job at guard. I think he has a twitch that we saw some on tape in college and then has done better in the NFL with it. He's a guy that, and we haven't repped him out there yet, but he would be a get-us-out-of-a-game-at-tackle guy if we had to because he does have the experience at it, could do it. I do think his overall, really range, sometimes range gets a guy to tackle. You can't get out to the wider guys because of how you're built and how you’re framed that way. That's why I think you move to guard for him, I saw that as that's a better spot for him than tackle. Although he could in a pinch play. In a pitch, he can play all five. He snapped the ball as well. I can't remember which one, when we were down to only two guys or three, he would have to go in the game and snap the ball to get us out of it and have him out there taking snaps before practice.”

So Puni doesn't quite have the range to block speed rushers screaming around the edge. Fair enough. But if he can snap the football, why not give him a chance to play center, which is a much more valuable position than guard?

Just a thought.

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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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