STARTING OUT

Defending NFC champs have big turnover in opening lineup

- Craig Massei

For a team that returned 17 regular starters from a squad that made it all the way to the Super Bowl last season, the 49ers had a decidedly different look to open the season this year compared to the lineup they put on the field for their 2019 season opener at Tampa Bay. That was both good and bad. Several new starters had won their jobs while establishing themselves during the course of last year’s exhilarating run to the NFC championship. Others had been brought in by design to replace the departed. And still others were filling in for injured regulars, meaning the 49ers had a surprising 10 new faces in their starting lineup on offense and defense to begin their 2020 journey, Sept. 13, against the Arizona Cardinals. Several of them will be remaining there, and some others obviously won’t. Here, The Niner Report takes a look at every new starter and where each stands as the team moves through the early part of its schedule, giving a bottom-line determination whether San Francisco is better or worse at the position now than the 49ers were when the season started last year.

WR DANTE PETTIS

The third-year veteran, San Francisco’s second-round draft pick in 2018, had a lot to prove to the 49ers this summer after his vanishing act last season, when Pettis didn’t catch a pass in San Francisco’s final 11 games, including playoffs, and didn’t even play a snap in the final nine games. But Pettis came to training camp this summer displaying focus and determination, and he produced some of the best practices of his career to get back in the mix for playing time in San Francisco’s receiver rotation.