SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The circumstances surrounding what could have been right tackle Mike McGlinchey’s last game with the 49ers were somewhat reminiscent of his first career game four-plus years ago.
That’s not a good thing.
A slew of injuries along the offensive line before the 2018 season opener forced McGlinchey, who hadn’t played guard since he was in fifth grade, to slide inside for his pro debut. The results for the entire O-line weren’t pretty, and the 49ers lost at Minnesota on that day.
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“We almost had to have (tight end) Garrett Celek play tackle that day,” McGlinchey said as the 49ers cleaned out the lockers for the season Tuesday, “because we ran through so many O-linemen that were active.”
The topic of running out of healthy players had surfaced for obvious reasons, as the 49ers were just two days removed from a quarterback-injury catastrophe in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game. Both of the team’s active quarterbacks, Brock Purdy and Josh Johnson, were injured in the defeat at Philadelphia.
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So McGlinchey, whose contract is set to expire in March, couldn’t help but think of that 2018 fire drill in Minnesota.
This most recent loss, though, carried much higher stakes and was therefore much more painful for the 49ers.
“It doesn’t feel great to know that you essentially just have to run your head through a brick wall for two quarters just figuring out what to do,” McGlinchey said. “I’ve never been part of a situation like that. I’ve never seen that before. But, emergencies happen.”
Right now, with the wounds of the defeat still fresh, the silver lining for McGlinchey lies in the positives that have occurred in the time between his first and most recent games with the 49ers. Over that time, he has developed into a well-rounded offensive tackle. He’s set to command a solid chunk of change on the open market — if this offseason’s situation reaches that point.
McGlinchey, 28, says he’d ultimately prefer to re-sign with the 49ers.
“If everything works out the right way,” McGlinchey said. “But, obviously, you can’t be an idiot about it. I understand what my value is. I think (the 49ers) do, too. I hope the rest of the league will when the time comes.”
McGlinchey said money won’t be the only factor that determines his future, but it will be a significant one.
McGlinchey’s fiancee, Brooke Rhoades, is a San Jose native. The two will marry in the Bay Area in July. The wedding will feature 17 groomsmen — McGlinchey’s five brothers, six of his cousins and six of his best friends. And no, Rhoades won’t have 17 bridesmaids to bring balance to the wedding photos.
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“We’re not going to try to match numbers,” McGlinchey said, laughing.
But he certainly hopes the 49ers do at least match numbers when it comes to potential contract offers from other teams.
“I love being here,” McGlinchey said. “The Bay has become my home. My future wife is from here. I love playing for this team, this coaching staff, this ownership group. It’s a great spot. Some of my best friends are here as teammates, as players, but also as support staff.
“It’s hard to ever want to leave this place. I’ve seen people do it and be heartbroken about it later on. So you’ve got to do a lot of thinking and see how the chips fall. (Leaving) is not something that I want to do for sure, but again, it’s not always up to me.”
The 49ers must again navigate a tight salary-cap situation this offseason. They already have about $225 million in total liabilities with only 45 players under contract, which means that financial Tetris will be necessary to get under the NFL’s $224.8 million cap for the 2023 season.
“There are a lot of damn good football players in our locker room, and a lot of them need to be paid,” McGlinchey said. “And we’ve certainly got one who’s going to break the entire bank, so you’ve got to see how the chips fall.”
That one is defensive lineman Nick Bosa, who was drafted in the first round a year after McGlinchey and very likely won’t play on the currently exercised option year of his rookie deal. McGlinchey, whom the 49ers selected No. 9 in 2018, just played out his version of that fifth-year option, earning $10.9 million in 2022.
An extension for McGlinchey might cost the 49ers more annually than that. Thirty-year-old Rams right tackle Rob Havenstein, a slightly older player with comparable pass- and run-blocking metrics to McGlinchey’s, signed a three-year extension worth up to $34.5 million a few months ago. That came out to an average annual value of $11.5 million per year, which might serve as a starting point for the 49ers’ negotiations with McGlinchey.
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The franchise tag for tackles, which doesn’t differentiate between the right and left side (where salaries remain higher), is set at $18.2 million for the 2023 season. It seems that’d be prohibitively expensive for the 49ers, especially since the cap hit of franchise tag contracts can’t be amortized over multiple seasons.
Over the past two seasons, McGlinchey has ranked among the top half of NFL tackles in both pass- and run-blocking metrics, a significant shift from his first three seasons, which featured above-average run-blocking scores and decidedly below-average pass-blocking grades.
“That obviously was an area I needed to improve on,” McGlinchey said of his pass protection. “I think I did that the last two years. I’ve had a lot of success the past two years.”
And that has set McGlinchey up for this presumably lucrative offseason. If the 49ers decide they can’t fit him into their cap structure, the team will likely move swing tackle Colton McKivitz into McGlinchey’s starting role on the right side.
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As many of his 49ers teammates packed their bags Tuesday, McGlinchey cleaned out much of his locker — even though he isn’t sure what the future will hold. He wanted to do the equipment staff a favor just in case this is the end of the road for him with the team.
“I took the opportunity to stop being a pack rat,” McGlinchey said. “Over the last four years, I’ve never touched anything in my locker, and I just found out what the hell was in there.”
It was a nostalgic exercise. At the very back of his locker, McGlinchey found get-well-soon drawings that Joe Staley’s daughter, Grace, had made for him after he suffered his first NFL injury in 2019.
“It was a fun trip down memory lane,” McGlinchey said.
Within the next two months, we’ll find out whether McGlinchey will stuff more reminders into that same locker — or whether he’ll begin hoarding elsewhere in the NFL.
(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
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