No position on the San Francisco 49ers gets discussed quite like the offensive line.
The line remains essentially the same after a down 2024 season with Trent Williams, Jake Brendel, Dominick Puni, and Colton McKivitz set to return, and likely Ben Bartch replacing Aaron Banks at left guard.
The 49ers haven’t gone out of their way to upgrade the offensive line in recent years, leading to our first of three questions for the 2025 version of the San Francisco front:
How good is the offensive line?
The offensive
line has been the most scrutinized position group on the 49ers in recent years. That scrutiny stems from the apparent lack of interest Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch show in trying to improve it.
Since the 49ers traded for Trent Williams during the 2020 draft, San Francisco has exclusively filled their needs along the line with replacement-level players. After Mike McGlinchey signed with the Denver Broncos a few years back, the 49ers replaced him with Colton McKivitz, who had started five games in three years before taking over as the full-time right tackle.
The same thing happened at center. When Alex Mack called it a career after the 2021 season, Jake Brendel, who had made three career starts in four seasons, took the starting job and has started in all 51 games since.
San Francisco is employing the strategy again, losing a three-year starter at left guard in Aaron Banks and seemingly replacing him with Ben Bartch, who has started more than six games in a season just once in his five-year career.
The offensive line will likely be fine for 2025, as it has been for the past few years, but it won’t be a tremendous offensive line. On any given week, the front five will be anywhere from slightly below average to slightly above average, and Shanahan and Brock Purdy have shown they can win with that type of production.
There is one thing, however, that could change the outlook of the offensive line, leading us to question number two:
How many games will Trent Williams play in 2025?
Williams hasn’t played a full season since 2013, when he started all 16 games for Washington. Since then, he’s missed at least a couple of games each season, but last season, he only played in ten games, his fewest since 2017.
Before 2024, the most games Williams had missed as a 49er were three, which happened in 2020 and 2022. He’s also missed at least two games in each year with San Francisco, playing in 15 games in 2021 and 2023.
But 2024 proved to be too much. Williams missed the last seven games last season with an ankle injury, and while Jaylon Moore sufficed as a replacement, losing Williams on top of all the other injuries the offense suffered last season proved to be too much.
Now with Moore as a presumed starter in Kansas City, the 49ers’ depth behind Williams is Andre Dillard, who is on his fourth team in as many years, and Spencer Burford, who is more fit to be a guard. Simply put, the 49ers could withstand Williams missing his annual two or three games, but anything more than that, and the San Francisco offensive line will suffer.
How does San Francisco address offensive tackle after 2025?
This question isn’t relevant for this season’s team, but it is a potential storyline that will get talked about, especially if the 2025 season goes like 2024 did.
Williams isn’t getting any younger, and every season he plays from here on out could be seen as his last, while McKivitz is entering the last season of his contract. It’s possible that Williams retires after 2025, and the 49ers, like with many before him, allow McKivitz to test free agency, only to sign a contract he would have never gotten from San Francisco.
If the 49ers do lose both after 2025, the offensive line will be in as dire a situation as ever. San Francisco was smart enough to replace future Hall-of-Famer Joe Staley with another in Williams’ five years ago, but finding that level of replacement this time around seems nearly impossible.
The offensive line has been volatile the past few seasons, but 2026 and beyond could be a different story, especially if San Francisco replaces Williams, as they’ve replaced linemen in recent seasons.
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