The 49ers went a little unconventional on their offensive line last season. Rookie Spencer Burford would start at RG and veteran Daniel Brunskill would rotate in throughout the game. This year they’ve only rolled with Burford at RG, but it sounds like that may be changing soon.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan on Monday in a conference call talked about the play of veteran OL Jon Feliciano after he filled in at left guard for the injured Aaron Banks. Feliciano has acquitted himself well in multiple stints at LG for San Francisco this season – well enough that Shanahan said a rotation with Burford could be on the table.
“It had been discussed,” Shanahan said. “Nothing against Spencer, but I wanted to make sure that Jon knew that we were aware of how well we thought he had been doing. So that was something I just had mentioned to him and was planning on doing it. Hadn’t thought how we would do it yet. I just thought he had earned to be out there a little bit and unfortunately Aaron got hurt, but we never looked into anymore after that because we knew he was going to be up this week and this week going forward.”
Banks is dealing with a toe injury he suffered in Week 8. He missed the team’s return from its bye week, and is slated to miss Week 11 as well. That means at least for now Feliciano will man the LG spot, where he was very good against the Jaguars. It’s worth noting Burford also played well in Jacksonville in what was probably his best game of the season.
Once Banks returns though we could see the 49ers switch up how they’re operating at the other guard position. Burford was more or less given the job in camp without much competition. Now Feliciano has created competition through his in-game and practice play and it sounds like we’ll see another rotation at RG again once the rest of the offensive line is healthy.
