3 options 49ers have if Mike McGlinchey isn’t ready for 2022 season

There’s a good chance the 49ers will be without starting right tackle Mike McGlinchey at the beginning of 2022, prompting some contingency plans and options.

It’s a damned shame San Francisco 49ers right tackle Mike McGlinchey suffered a torn quad smack in the middle of the Niners’ 2021 regular-season campaign.

For starters, McGlinchey showed some notable improvement over the so-so efforts he displayed the year before, particularly in pass protection. And while San Francisco has yet to offer him an extension beyond his original rookie contract signed when he was drafted in Round 1 back in 2018, it did pick up his fifth-year option for 2022.

However, McGlinchey could have turned all of last season into a massive campaign effort to justify a new contract beyond the upcoming year.

Now, he might need 2022 to save his job with the 49ers.

While general manager John Lynch was originally optimistic about McGlinchey’s subsequent surgery and recovery, the raw nature of the injury is a serious one. And to cap off some of those concerns about his recovery, McGlinchey’s recent social media post on Twitter revealed a notably lighter right tackle than his playing weight of 310 pounds from a year ago:

Again, it’s not worth diving too deep into this. McGlinchey likely couldn’t work out and lift weights in the same manner he otherwise would if his quad muscle hadn’t completely separated from the bone. And with the 2022 regular season not kicking off until September, he has plenty of time to get his playing weight up to its ideal 300-plus pound mark.

That won’t be an easy task, though.

So, if McGlinchey isn’t close to starting in the regular season, what contingency plans will the Niners have?

Let’s take a look.