The San Francisco 49ers could improve at several positions ahead of the upcoming season, but left guard stands out as the spot with the most uncertainty. The Niners figure to have a competition to see who will win the starting job, but they missed out on a player with ties to head coach Kyle Shanahan because he retired.
Veteran guard Joel Bitonio decided to retire after 12 very impressive seasons with the Cleveland Browns. He overlapped with Shanahan in 2014, which was Bitonio’s rookie season and Shanahan’s lone year as the offensive coordinator in Cleveland.
Bitonio hadn’t quite become the force that he would be later in his career, and it actually took him some time to put the pieces together. Injuries limited in his sophomore campaign and his third season in the NFL, but by 2018, he had become a perennial Pro Bowl player and made seven straight Pro Bowls from 2018 to 2024. He took home first-team All-Pro honors in 2021 and 2022, so there was a time when he was considered the best left guard in the NFL.
He didn’t make the Pro Bowl in his final season, so it seems like there was a bit of a decline toward the end of his career. Even if he had kept playing, and the Niners had signed him, they likely wouldn’t have gotten the best version of Bitonio.
Still, it would have been more reassuring to have a seasoned hand like him on the offensive line. Imagine what it would have been like having Trent Williams and Bitonio on the left side of the line. That could have actually given the Niners a pretty solid O-line for the first time in a while.
Alas, the longtime Browns veteran decided to hang it up. Now, the 49ers will likely have to move ahead with their existing options, which could end up being a good thing. Connor Colby, Robert Jones, Brett Toth, and Carver Willis all figure to be in the mix with that competition. Perhaps having these guys battle will lead to the cream rising to the top and will actually strengthen whoever emerges victorious.
At the same time, it’s easy to envision something of a revolving door at left guard next season where the position is never quite settled. That’s not a great situation to be in, but it may end up being San Francisco’s reality.
Bitonio would have been an ideal fit for the Niners, given his pedigree and the fact he had a brief connection with Shanahan.
But that ship has sailed, so San Francisco will simply have to get by with what it has.
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