Hello Niner faithful and welcome back to another positional breakdown brought to you by Niner faithful radio.com If you haven’t already, follow us on Twitter @NinerfaithfulR and don’t forget to check out our live videos all throughout the week on twitch.tv/NinerFaithfulRadio. Lets get too it! Up on the hot seat today, the trench warriors and knights guard to the QB himself….the Offensive Line.
The swirling heat of another California summer continues to roll through Santa Clara. To some it is another challenge to beat and to others it’s a challenge to survive. But despite the temperature rising the big dogs of the NFL are out in full force. Most of them nasty three hundred plus pound monsters of the trenches, dripping sweat in places you or I could never imagine and chaffing under the pads like you wouldn’t believe. But this is what grinds us. This is what turns the loveable teddy bears and silverbacks like Mike Mcglinchey and Trent Williams into absolute BEASTS! Now up to this point we haven’t seen or heard too much about the offensive line. Most reports are empty and leave us left with nothing but more rumors sprinkled with a little bit of expected off season rust shaking off in the form of a minor injury here and there and followed up by some very real fear and flashbacks from a year ago. The lack of news doesn’t stop us die hard faithful’s from still spending every waking moment looking for new news to talk about and new reasons why we can tell the world that we’re going to the Super bowl!
In the age of The Passing League the Niners have managed to develop one of the most feared rushing games in all of professional American football. Behind the brilliant mind of Head Coach Kyle Shanahan, the 49er offense has excelled at not only running the ball with talented running backs but the offensive line has become elite at skills like blocking, vision, and the overall aspect of how to beat a defense on the ground. While still capable of throwing the ball, this offense built to be the cream of the crop is no slouch at blocking for the quarterback, but the Niners O-line is known purely for its bombastic style of run blocking that allows running backs to find the hole and explode for big gains. You don’t have to go very far in this league asking the question, “Who has the best running game in the NFL?” One could argue who the best running backs are outside of the bay area but the best running game in football belongs to our San Francisco 49ers.
OFFENSIVE CENTER:
The center position, once lead by now retired mauler Weston Richburg, isn’t as much of a toss up as you might consider. A smooth and somewhat cheap, 3 year 14.8 million dollar free agent acquisition of Alex Mack provides some stability for a position that could have been left devastated by a retiring player. Filling the gaps of future holes in our team has been something that general manager John Lynch, has seemed to be the master of. Lynch’s acquisition of Mack should provide a fruitful outcome as it did in Atlanta when Kyle Shanahan was the offensive coordinator. Looking for a new start and a shot at a championship before his careers over, Mack takes the lead on this position with a depth of 2 (A. Mack and J. Brendel) as of OTA’s, and all signs point to him being the guaranteed starter at the anchor position of the offensive line.
OFFENSIVE GUARD:
The guard position on the other hand is a little more “up in the air”, no pun intended. A second-round draft pick of Notre Dame’s Aaron Banks and the emergence last season of quality depth player, Ian Williams, should provide us with a pretty interesting positional battle come training camp. On the weak side of the Center, Laken Tomlinson has all but solidified himself as our starting left guard, and this is something that all season long, Laken proved himself to be a decent competitor with great vision on the swing blocks and a rare agility for a left guard. He is tough as well and boasts a pretty decent pass-blocking game in his arsenal. Time will tell what happens on the strong side of the ball however, but moving forward through camp Aaron Banks looks to take the first-team Reps and never look back. This is seen by some critics as a mistake. Coming out of the draft Banks was criticized a lot for his size and speed. Kyle Shanahan, of course, is known for not really riding with larger offensive lineman usually preferring them to slim down to be quicker and more agile. A sentiment a lot of Niner fans feel shouldn’t be changed because it has worked out for Shanahan up to this point but the sheer size and strength of Banks could not be ignored in a position that deals with defensive masters like Aaron Donald and JJ Watt twice a year. The choice to spend that important second-round pick was a no brainer for Shanahan and Lynch who aim to bring him into an offensive line that’s already proved they can make a Super Bowl run if they can stop the heavy hitters up front.
OFFENSIVE TACKLE:
At a point in the 49ers history where the biggest questions are, “Can our impressive quarterback stay healthy?” Or “Is the rookie ready to hit that high ceiling of his?” The most important position to answer these questions, outside of QB play itself, is the tackle position. Outside brick walls who’s job is protecting the quarterback in the passing game and stopping the defense from getting outside in the run game, these positions are usually the highest paid on the line coveted by every single team. The 49ers are in a rare position to have two really great quality offensive tackles, one of which is THE BEST in the NFL and just got paid like it in the tune of a 6 year 138 million dollar contract (highest for a tackle in the history of the NFL.) Trent Williams, who plays with the ever-evolving chip on his shoulder looks to start his new contract on the right path by keeping his off injured quarterback upright for as much as the game allows. In a division where the pass rush has become elite the pass blocking needs to be whatever the next level to elite is, and with Trent Williams and Mike Mcglinchey, that level is not far from our grasp. Behind the two All-Pro tackles is a stable of really decent depth players. Guys who can play in all parts of the offensive line and can be seamlessly plugged in all over the line. Shon Coleman for instance, a third-round pick out of Auburn 2 years ago, has yet to show what he’s capable of. Two injuries in multiple seasons including an ACL tear that derailed him for most his career thus far have severely dampened a pretty warm hype train upon his signing with us. Hoping to finally get himself on the field to show what he can do, Shon Coleman could turn out to be a solid backup or even a future star should things align for the still young tackle. Behind Coleman on the depth chart is a player who last season shined in the wake of injuries and devastation, Justin Skule. Skule dominated on his side of the field, pretty much where Shanahan needed him, despite being a 2019 undrafted free agent. Its my opinion that should Mike Mcglinchey continue to stale mate at his current skill level, a possibility according to some fans, Skule is a very worthy replacement. But don’t sleep on Daniel Brunskill either. Also forced into the starting lineup last season, despite everything failing around them, Skule and Brunskill managed to be bright spots on that interior and exterior of our offensive line. My point is, we have some really really good depth on our offensive line. Should our starters stay healthy, this position group has the kind of depth that can provide Kyle Shanahan with cheat codes to an offense that no other NFL team has available. I should also mention Tom Compton here seeing as how he is a part of this group, but when you get further and further down the depth chart I start to get scared of having to ever see them. I hope our offensive line can stay healthy this season. As negative as it sounds, I hope to never see Tom Compton. Not that he’s a bad player, it just means if we see him things are going horribly.
To wrap up this weeks positional breakdown of the Offensive Line I’ll say this much, I’m comfortable with what we have. I truly believe this group of hand picked Shanahan guys are what this team needs to be aggressive and successful up front. I can see our ground game continuing its success behind these monsters and should all go according to plan, and also I can see our pass blocking success take a steep rise up as well. The key is to keep Jimmy G upright, this will answer the question of his health woes. With two great tackles and an interior of plug and play, jack of all trade, mauler type of linemen this shouldn’t be an issue moving forward and the sky, or the end zone, is the limit for this group of calorie smashers. Thank you very much for reading this article here on Niner Faithful Radio and once again if you like what you see smash those like buttons, share the articles, post the stories and don’t forget to subscribe to us on Twitch. If you like watching things live you’ll be glad you checked out our multiple live twitch streams throughout the week and if you like what I bring as an author follow me on twitter @MrNiceGuyx559x. Thanks again for your faithfulness and GO NINERS!