Niner Noise 49ers roundtable: Start of 2019 season edition

Question 1: The 49ers chose to keep four tight ends on the 53 man roster, in your opinion is that too excessive?

Aaron Tan

In my opinion, the 49ers keeping four tight ends is too excessive. They have a much more pressing need at the safety position, where the team is only keeping three of them (prior to re-signing Antone Exum). The 53-man roster reveal was a huge surprise with the 49ers opting to keep Levine Toilolo on the roster as their fourth tight end, and I would be surprised if he was not cut for a safety in the near future.

Akshaj Dwivedula

Without a doubt this is too much. Once Jalen Hurd gets healthy, then they should cut Levine Toilolo for sure.

Chris Wilson

Absolutely. Keeping four tight ends — and three quarterbacks — forced the team to go light at other positions of need, like offensive line. There is no need for any team to keep four tight ends, especially when the 49ers also kept seven wide receivers.

James Jones

In a word… yes.

John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan seemed intent on defining the term depth by keeping four tight ends on the 53 man roster. With George Kittle being the de facto number one of the group, Ross Dwelley will serve as his primary backup.

There is little chance that all four players will be active on game days which leads me to believe that one of rookie Kaden Smith and journeyman Levine Toilolo could be released sooner than later.

The 49ers did spend a draft pick on Smith coming out of Stanford, so they have capital invested there. Shanahan is familiar with Toilolo from his time in Atlanta, so which one gets cut at some point will come down to who has a better understanding of the playbook and shows more on the field.

Jeremy Wohlfart

I like the idea of having multiple tight ends who can add different looks to the offense, but four was too excessive. Levine Toilolo really should have been cut in my opinion and Jeff Wilson kept on as a fourth running back.

Joshua Altorfer

Yeah, four tight ends is probably overdoing it going into the season. With George Kittle being a top-two tight end in the entire league, I don’t see the need to have added depth at that position.

Coach Shanahan must plan on running the ball out of a lot of two tight end sets.

Peter Panacy

It is, considering the weaknesses on the roster elsewhere. The problem is trying to figure out who’d need to go. I understand Levine Toilolo being there, as he’s one of the best blocking tight ends in the league. Those are important. But while Ross Dwelley showed some stuff during training camp and the preseason, it’s hard seeing him have much of an impact at all on the 53-man roster.

Robert Morrison

It is, but I can see the logic for two reasons. Either keep four because, outside of Kittle, none of the other three are particularly diverse in his skill sets (Dwelley and Smith are more recovers, Toilolo the better blocker), so this helps a little better with diversity. Second, they’ve already got a roster move in mind, like with the Kentavius Street/Antone Exum move, or are hoping to use one of the backups as a trade piece.

Timmy Gibson

Well first of all, while the 49ers do currently have four tight ends on the roster, these early season rosters are usually pretty fluid until the first game. So we’ll see if there actually are four tight ends long-term. And as to whether or not that’s excessive, with the versatility and flexibility of Kyle Shanahan’s offense, it certainly can’t hurt to have an extra tight end in there, so I’ll trust the coaching staff on this one.