Mike McGlinchey may have been among the most disappointed to hear that his San Francisco 49ers teammate and close friend, Joe Staley, is calling it a career after 13 NFL seasons. The writing was on the wall, but McGlinchey, who has forged a close bond with the veteran over the past two seasons, will undoubtedly miss seeing Staley anchor the opposite side of the offensive line.
McGlinchey spoke with reporters via a video conference call on Tuesday and shared his first memories of Staley as a 49ers teammate. The veteran texted him a congratulatory message on the night he was drafted. As a joke, the next day, Staley forced everyone in the team's cafeteria to stand up and give McGlinchey a standing ovation.
The two have been close friends ever since then.
"He's earned the right to hang it up, and earned the right to walk away with his head held high, and with one organization," McGlinchey said. "It's something that's so, so impressive, and something that I'm definitely shooting for."
Nearly a decade separates the two tackles' ages, but that never mattered.
"That was the most surprising thing; that I became best friends with this 35-year-old that I wasn't expecting him to treat me that way," McGlinchey said. "I was expecting to have to earn the respect, and all that kind of stuff, which I did, but not as fast and not as openly as Joe had made it for me."
Did McGlinchey know early on how seriously Staley was considering retirement? Not entirely. At least, not until a few weeks after the Super Bowl, when his teammate started receiving more information from doctors and felt that it might be time to call it a career, for the sake of his health and family.
Staley mentioned "a deteriorating neck condition" in the retirement letter he posted on social media. General manager John Lynch elaborated on that during a Tuesday morning KNBR interview.
"Joe started having some issues (heading into the playoffs)," Lynch said, "in terms of having stingers and things, that, when you have them repeatedly, are really tough. Joe never really told us about them because he said, 'What am I going to do? Not play in the playoffs? Now play in the Super Bowl? I was playing. So, I figured I'm not going to tell anyone.'
"And then it kind of revealed itself (during) Super Bowl week, in talking with Joe. And then he went and played, and played great. But then after, he went and got opinions, and we helped him in that process. He started seeing some things, some realities of kind of what had gone on in his body."
McGlinchey said he knew Staley was seriously considering retirement this time around — the tackle did so once before during the 2017 season. He thought about the upcoming season, and how different it will be not to have Staley standing next to him on the sidelines. The two were almost inseparable.
Upon being drafted, McGlinchey was already familiar with Staley, and it wasn't just from his reputation on the football field. While he remembers scouring through three season's worth of Notre Dame and former Central Michigan coach Brian Kelly's collection of Staley's 49ers game film, it wasn't his only exposure to his future NFL teammate. McGlinchey admitted that, long before being drafted by the 49ers, he was an avid viewer of The Joe Show, the occasional fan-favorite online show that featured Staley interviewing his teammates.
McGlinchey has always and continues to make a case for Staley's eventual induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
"I think he's a Hall of Famer, without a doubt," McGlinchey campaigned. "I think it's a no-brainer. I think all the accolades, the Pro Bowls, All-Pro, two Super Bowl appearances, and All-Decade Team, all that kind of stuff. ... He affected 15 years worth of offensive linemen. When you turn on (the film of) how a left tackle is supposed to play football in a complete game ... Joe was the most complete offensive tackle of his generation, and that's something that I think should, without a doubt, be entrenched into the Hall of Fame."
Could McGlinchey eventually take Staley's spot on the left side? Perhaps. The third-year tackle didn't dismiss the possibility but notes that he is very comfortable anchoring the opposite side.
"It's something that I'm getting very good at," explained McGlinchey. "... It's something that, really, I can't think of a reason why I'd need to make a switch other than outside-world hype on left tackles still a little more (than) on right tackles."
For now, it will be Trent Williams, the seven-time Pro Bowl tackle San Francisco traded for on Saturday, lining up in Staley's place. While McGlinchey will miss the camaraderie he shared with Staley, he doesn't expect the offensive line's performance to suffer.
"I don't know how different it's going to look because when you replace a Hall of Famer with another Hall of Famer -- I think the best thing that Trent adds is that we're not going to lose the production of a Hall of Fame left tackle," said McGlinchey. "I think that's the coolest thing about this whole situation, and what Joe even did to make sure we were OK as the 49ers, after he made his decision official. We don't have a drop-off.
"We replaced one of the best tackles in the NFL with another one of the best tackles in the NFL, who both play the game very similarly, have nastiness in them, have off-the-charts athletic ability, and are incredible in pass protection."
