The San Francisco 49ers held a press conference on Friday to introduce tackle Mike McGlinchey, who showed off his new No. 69 team jersey, to the media. He will play right tackle with the team and work on the opposite side of veteran tackle Joe Staley, who was drafted by the 49ers when McGlinchey was in seventh grade.
"Joe's obviously one of the most accomplished tackles in the NFL and has been for a long time," McGlinchey said. "He and I played under some similar coaching trees, so he's one of those guys that I've studied for a long time on top of admiring him from afar.
"It's going to be an incredible opportunity to play across from Joe and learn from him and the kind of guy and player that he is. His reputation exceeds him, and he's deserving of all the credit that he has. I'm very, very excited to get to work with Joe, and learn from him, and hopefully elevate my game to a level he's been playing at for a long time."
Staley has been a significant influence in McGlinchey's football career. Staley played at Central Michigan in college, but some of his former coaches are now part of Notre Dame's football staff.
"He's a guy that I've not only admired and looked up to and known who he was, I studied Joe," McGlinchey continued. "I studied how he does things, what techniques he uses, and tried to put it within my own game. I was able to kind of have that access and know who he was because of the coaches who are at Notre Dame and that have coached him before.
"Like I said, I'm just so, so excited to get to be in the same room as him, and get around him, and learn as much as I can from him in a quick amount of time."
McGlinchey was brought in to protect the 49ers' $137.5 million investment – quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. He will be part of a revamped offensive line which will look very different compared to 2017.
"I met Jimmy for a little bit and spoke with him for a little while in between his workout and stuff," McGlinchey said. "I'm really excited to get to work with him. I'm really, really excited to get to work with Jimmy. He's going to be a guy who's going to lead this football team to great heights, and I think that we're going to have a lot of success together.
"Seeing what he did at the end of the year last year when he got here and having [head coach Kyle Shanahan] and all those guys around him, I think we're going to have the chance to do something pretty special."
