Photo Credit: 49ers
Mike McGlinchey’s play this season is an awful sore subject, given that there hasn’t been a break in the discussion about it. There’s a lot of “he’s terrible,” or, “he’s been very good, actually, and you just don’t watch film.”
That latter argument came from McGlinchey himself.
The truth is, McGlinchey has remained a stellar run blocker, just as he’s always been. But, with a slimmed-down frame, he has struggled consistently with power rushers and been thrown to the ground on a startling number of occasions. The more the 49ers run, the more he gains confidence, and the more likely that confidence is to feed into his pass blocking.
He’s a huge ride-the-wave player. When that running game is going, he’ll usually be better in pass protection because (1) he’s in pass protection less and (2) the confidence he has from dominating blocks in the run game extends, for the most part, to the pass game.
But when it’s not going well, it can spiral, like against the Eagles, and the Saints, and like it has on a more than a couple of occasions during myriad games this season. Does this mean McGlinchey is a bad tackle? Well… not exactly. He’s been objectively a bad pass blocking tackle and a stellar run blocker. That’s sort of like being a massive, athletic blocking tight end.
And if you’re one of those people, even PFF has McGlinchey graded that way. His 91.1 run blocking grade is third-best in the NFL and his 57.7 pass blocking grade is… 70th out of 84 eligible tackles (or 15th-worst if you prefer that framing).
Being serviceable most of the time in pass protection, and getting thoroughly whooped at least a few times a game, and sometimes more than that, should not be enough to make a long-term bet on a player.
Kyle Shanahan was asked whether the 49ers would pick up McGlinchey’s option with a decision due by May 3. He said that he hasn’t discussed it, but made assurances that McGlinchey is part of the future.
“We haven’t talked about it, which is probably a big tweet thing, but McGlinchey is going to be here,” Shanahan said. “So, without me ever thinking of that, no, we haven’t talked about it, but don’t worry, Mike, you’ll be all right, man. So, obviously, I’ve got to talk to [general manager] John [Lynch], talk to [CEO] Jed [York], but I didn’t even realize that was up next year, which means I feel pretty good about McGlinchey.”
Shanahan said he believes that the criticism McGlinchey has received can help him improve, saying, “he’s going to have a great career and I plan on it being here.”
Where I stand on McGlinchey is, seemingly, where general manager John Lynch stands on McGlinchey. As Lynch said on KNBR, the 49ers will ask him to put on weight. This bull-rush issue has mostly been a problem this season, and has long appeared to be an overcorrection from when he struggled with speed rushers last years.
“I do think Mike got a little light this offseason,” Lynch said. “I think he’s struggled with that. And that’s something we’ll probably address this offseason to give him some more anchor in there. I think that will help him moving forward.”
The 49ers can win with McGlinchey. They proved that in 2019.
He can correct some of his issues this year. It will help him, too, if he has a right guard partner next season that he has any sort of confidence in or consistency with. There was way too much inexperience and way too much rotation next to him, and because of that, there was a disjointed brand of all-too-frequent catastrophe on that right side.
But he needs to make a serious leap in pass protection next year, because if you’re going to pay him a fifth-year option, it’s not cheap. Worrying about your tackle having a phantom step in drops against speed rushers or literally getting pancaked by power is a worrying proposition at a cost of more than $11 million per year (numbers are explained below), especially if you opt to go with a young quarterback.
With the new collective bargaining agreement, the NFL has changed the way fifth-year options are calculated. There are four categories, roughly defined as (1) non-starters in their first three years, (2) starters in their first three years, (3) one-time Pro Bowlers and (4) multiple time Pro Bowlers.
McGlinchey is in that second category, which, financially speaking, would give him a modified version of the transition tag. Warning: cap jargon and math incoming.
The transition tag takes the top-10 salaries of players from a specific position from each of the last five seasons, comes up with an average for each season, and sums that amount. For some reason, the NFL groups all offensive linemen together, meaning that number over the last five seasons is $57.1 million for McGlinchey’s group.
It then sums the salary cap of the previous five seasons ($885 million), divides that first number (that $57.1 million figure) against the cap, to get a percentage or fraction of the cap (6.44 percent). That number is then multiplied by the current year’s (whatever 2021’s is) cap.
In other words, you get each position’s percentage of the cap over the last five years, and multiply that number by the current year’s cap to get your amount.
For the range McGlinchey is in, it’s a transition tag of the 3rd-through-20th highest-paid offensive linemen over the last five seasons (rather than the top-10 for the transition tag or top-five for the franchise tag).
The problem here is that we don’t know what next year’s cap will be, and the range that’s provided is as vague as it has ever been. The floor is $175 million. OverTheCap’s projection is at $176 million. ProFootballTalk reported that the figure could be in the $195 million range, banking on optimism for the 2021 season having a normal number of fans in the stadium. It’s likely to drop for the first time since 2011 (a $3 million drop from 2009 after an uncapped year in 2010).
Using that formula, here’s how much McGlinchey’s fifth-year option might cost, assuming current, highly-paid linemen aren’t cut, and others aren’t extended to jump them.
If the cap is set at $176 million, McGlinchey’s option in 2022 would cost $11,344,590.
If the cap is set at $195 million, McGlinchey’s option in 2022 would cost $12,569,290.
That money is fully guaranteed, so if the 49ers exercise that option and decide to extend McGlinchey in a way that backloads his deal, there will already be bonus money locked in.
The team can also decline the option and try to extend McGlinchey… but that’s exceedingly rare. Out of the 2017 draft class which preceded McGlinchey’s in 2018, only Christian McCaffrey agreed to a contract extension.
From that lens, it seems more likely than not that the 49ers exercise the option and go from there. Whether that’s worth it? Well, that’s on McGlinchey.