four-year, $77 million contract from the Packers<\/a>, and Moore signs a two-year, $30 million contract after only playing 19 percent of the Niners\u2019 4,336 offensive snaps the last four seasons, it\u2019s undeniable that the offensive line market is broken.<\/p>\nThrowing money at the issue is not the solution to a team\u2019s o-line problems. It will probably just create more problems.<\/p>\n
And drafting offensive linemen early isn\u2019t likely to be the solution, either. The college game barely resembles the professional game on the offensive line these days, meaning that even first-round picks might need a redshirt year as a rookie to catch up. There\u2019s also a position pedigree that\u2019s developing, like with quarterbacks. Offensive linemen are being taken earlier and earlier than their collegiate play suggests. If you want one of the few guys who can plug-and-play, you\u2019d better get after them early. (Hence, the Niners taking Dom Puni last year two rounds before his consensus draft grade \u2014 whatever that\u2019s worth.)<\/p>\n
But doesn\u2019t it say something that other teams want the guys the 49ers seem content with letting leave?<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not as if the Niners wouldn\u2019t take an offensive line prospect they deem worthy of that draft slot.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all to say that they believe that with Forester at the helm, they can get by without the serious investments other teams are making.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re not wrong.<\/p>\n
Being an offensive lineman is a thankless job. It\u2019s also a gig where good and bad seem obvious, but everything else is difficult to discern.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a position that\u2019s easily \u2014 or appropriately, I\u2019d argue \u2014 quantified.<\/p>\n
Buffalo\u2019s offensive line gets immense credit for not allowing sacks last season. Was that them or quarterback Josh Allen?<\/p>\n
Was the Chiefs\u2019 offensive line actually good, as Pro Football Focus implies, or did their three good offensive linemen (the admittedly excellent guard-center-guard combo of Joe Thuney, Creed Humphrey, and Trey Smith) cover up the grades of the worst tackle duo in the league (which was attacked all season)?<\/p>\n
That applies to the 49ers, too. Center Jake Brendel had a bad season, at least by my eyes, in 2024. Tuesday, Foerster told reporters that he was the best-graded center the Niners have had since Shanahan arrived in 2017.<\/p>\n
All this to say that judging offensive line play is seriously subjective at best and borderline irresponsible without knowing the actual play call on the field.<\/p>\n
And these days, with the steady deterioration of play at the position \u2014 a byproduct of spread offenses, bad coaching, and a lack of bodies at the lower levels of the game \u2014 it doesn\u2019t take much to be good enough.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m guessing that, health permitting, the 49ers\u2019 pressure rate will go down in 2025.<\/p>\n
Still, Purdy was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL per Expected Points Added, despite being pressured more than 35 percent of the time last season. He was one of two quarterbacks amongst the top-15 most-pressured signal-callers to have a positive EPA. He doubled the other, Sam Darnold, with 67 EPA to 26. (Will Levis was minus-94.4, which almost seems impossible.)<\/p>\n
And Purdy did all that with the 26th highest rate of play-action passes and the 29th ranked average separation for targeted receivers. Things were not made easy for him.<\/p>\n
A little bit better than good enough on the offensive line could spur Purdy to have a monster, perhaps MVP-caliber season.<\/p>\n
I can see not only that for the 49ers this upcoming season, but also how this offensive line shakes out in the years to come.<\/p>\n
Contrary to the folks who call into my KNBR shows and comment on my podcast, Forester helped turn right tackle Colton McKivitz into a solid player in recent seasons. I\u2019d go as far as to say he was pretty good last year \u2014 arguably the Niners\u2019 best offensive lineman.<\/p>\n
And seeing as McKivitz was better than Moore, who, again, is now a $15 million-a-year lineman, the Niners might have to wave goodbye to him after this season.<\/p>\n
Cue the understudies, Burford and Pleasants, who are both in contract years but will assuredly be cheaper to re-sign.<\/p>\n
Puni needs big money in a couple of years? That\u2019s why Foerster brought in seventh-round pick Connor Colby and undrafted free agent Drew Moss (he seems to prefer the latter at this extremely early juncture) this offseason.<\/p>\n
Brendel\u2019s grade starts slipping? Drake Nugent is waiting in the wings.<\/p>\n
The only thing that the Niners don\u2019t have is a genuine replacement for Trent Williams.<\/p>\n
But the concept of replacing one of the greatest tackles of all time is laughable. That\u2019s a bridge you cross only when you have to, because there\u2019s no way you\u2019re going to succeed in that quest.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, the Foerster Machine is working precisely as intended.<\/p>\n
Which is to say that the Niners will be just fine \u2014 no better, no worse \u2014 on the offensive line.<\/p>\n
And that, these days, will do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA CLARA \u2014 Quick, name a good offensive line in the NFL. You probably said the Philadelphia Eagles,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,7,1921,3171,929,6,1161,252,2624,2623,9,2833],"class_list":{"0":"post-108623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-inside-sports","11":"tag-inside-the-san-francisco-49ers","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-san-francisco","15":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","16":"tag-sanfrancisco","17":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-sports-columnists"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}