Who Will Replace Anthony Davis?
By David Ochoa
Yesterday, San Francisco 49ers‘ starting right tackle Anthony Davis announced his retirement from the NFL. Davis is the fourth 49er to retire this off season. It somewhat puts the team in a bind because now instead of evaluating the rest of their OL for depth, they’re going to have to look for a starter.
After the initial freak out over his retirement, Davis posted on Twitter that he would be back, and that he was just taking a year or two off from the game to get healthy.
However, this still leaves the problem of finding a replacement this year.
Head coach Jim Tomsula told reporters that he wasn’t shocked about Davis’ retirement as well as he didn’t think it would be a huge blow to the team.
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Now whether or not Tomsula is just trying to stay positive and fluff up the rest of his team remains to be seen.
The 49ers already had a question mark at left guard with Mike Iupati leaving, and now they have another at right tackle.
How will the 49ers answer these questions?
The logical answer would be to slide Alex Boone over to right tackle. Boone’s natural position is at tackle, and every time Joe Staley has missed time, Boone was first in line to replace him on the line.
Most who are familiar with Boone’s situation believe that he wants to play tackle and earn a tackle’s salary. He doesn’t mind leaving the team in free agency to get that.
With Davis out for at least a year, he gets his chance to show other teams that he deserves a big contract.
If Boone does move over to right tackle, that would leave both guard positions up for grabs. There was never any real concern with replacing Iupati mostly because the 49ers have good depth. The problem that arises now is that the depth is being stretched thin.
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There still isn’t any real need to panic over filling in the two guard positions. The 49ers have multiple players on the line with good experience and great potential.
Brandon Thomas sat out his rookie year with injury, and is ready to compete for a starting spot. Thomas has the potential to be a very good player, and if he pans out, it might improve the line.
Marcus Martin and Joe Looney got good experience last year after half the line went down with injuries.
Rookie Trenton Brown is another candidate to replace Davis at right tackle, but for now he is mostly a project player. If he is somehow able to impress the coaches enough to earn the starting spot, then the 49ers could be in better shape then the rest of the world thinks.
The good news for the rest of players on the OL is that another roster spot just essentially opened up for them.
The 49ers’ run game may experience growing pains and may suffer this year after losing two great run blockers on the line. However, the bright side is that no matter who is on the line, they can’t really do much worse than last year.