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(Photo by Stacy Revere\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The San Francisco 49ers<\/a> could be looking to bolster their offensive line for the 2026 NFL season, and one insider believes that a veteran who remains a free agent might be a potential target.<\/p>\n San Francisco is in win-now mode, which is why they have added players like Dre Greenlaw, Mike Evans, and Christian Kirk, among others. Nonetheless, could the Niners be looking at another veteran player to reach the Super Bowl this upcoming season?<\/p>\n David Lombardi, who covers the 49ers for the SF Standard, floated Cleveland Browns<\/a> free agent Joel Bitonio as a potential name to look out for to bolster the left guard position. <\/p>\n \u201cThose of you unfamiliar with Joel Bitonio, he\u2019s been one of the great guards in the NFL over the course of the past decade, decade-and-a-half,\u201d Lombardi said in a March 29 video on his YouTube channel<\/a>. \u201cHe has been with the Cleveland Browns for all of that time. His first season in the NFL was 2014. Kyle Shanahan was the offensive coordinator of the Browns in 2014\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cJoel Bitonio is a potential target if he doesn\u2019t retire. He\u2019s at age 34, but he has still been playing really good football. And if you want to talk about building a dominant left side of the offensive line, well, Trent Williams is still a dominant player.\u201d<\/p>\n Bitonio finished the 2025 season with a 70.7 overall PFF grade<\/a>, placing him 23rd among 81 qualifying offensive guards, logging 1,081 offensive snaps. In pass protection, he earned a 75.7 grade while his run-blocking grade of 64.4. <\/p>\n Moreover, Bitonio allowed 31 total pressures, including two sacks and one hit, and was penalized once throughout the season. The veteran is currently weighing whether to return for a 13th NFL season \u2014 in Cleveland or elsewhere \u2014 or walk away from the game entirely<\/a>.<\/p>\n 49ers Insider Gives Latest on Trent Williams<\/p>\n Speaking of Trent Williams, on March 29, the SF Standard\u2019s David Lombardi shared the latest on the 49ers\u2019 plans to resolve the situation with their veteran offensive lineman.<\/p>\n \u201cJohn Lynch says that 49ers\u2019 talks with Trent Williams have \u2018intensified\u2019 over the past week,\u201d\u00a0Lombardi wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cHe thinks \u2018we\u2019re on the precipice of something good.’\u201d<\/p>\n In 2025, Williams played 996 snaps for the 49ers, allowing four sacks and eight hits while committing four penalties.\u00a0PFF<\/a>\u00a0gave him an overall grade of 91.5, ranking him third among all offensive tackles.<\/p>\n Furthermore, his run-blocking grade was 92.8, while his pass-blocking grade was 79.9. Williams gave up 32 total pressures in pass protection, including four sacks and eight hits.<\/p>\n Richard Sherman Gets Blunt About Trent Williams Situation<\/p>\n Amid this concerning issue, former\u00a049ers\u00a0cornerback\u00a0Richard Sherman<\/a>\u00a0weighed in on whether San Francisco would be willing to cut ties with Williams this offseason.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they\u2019ve gotten frustrated, not with Trent Williams, but just with the dead\u2011money situation that they\u2019ve run into year after year,\u201d Sherman said on\u00a0the March 26 edition of \u201cThe Richard Sherman Podcast.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI think they\u2019ve been among the top dead\u2011money teams for the last few years because of Javon Hargrave\u2019s contract,\u00a0Deebo Samuel<\/a>, and so many other guys that they\u2019ve had to part ways with for whatever reason.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re trying to get away from that. I don\u2019t think they want to throw more dead money into the future. I think they\u2019re trying to take their licks now. Again, I haven\u2019t talked to John [Lynch] or Kyle [Shanahan], but I obviously don\u2019t see them getting rid of Trent Williams.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tEduardo Razo<\/a> Eduardo Razo is a sports writer for Heavy.com, covering the NFL, MLB, and college football. He has previously covered the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB for NBC Sports Washington and NBC Sports Bay Area & California, and has freelanced for PSG Talk, covering Paris Saint-Germain. He also worked as an editor at Athlon Sports, focusing on MLB and the NFL. More about Eduardo Razo<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on 49ers\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty (Photo by Stacy Revere\/Getty Images) The San Francisco 49ers could be looking to bolster their offensive line…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2054],"tags":[86,85,54,2337,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-842434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-browns","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-browns","11":"tag-clevelandbrowns","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116316613096234849","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842434","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=842434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}