49ers news: Mike McGlinchey not likely to return to San Francisco

The writing on the wall has been there for a while, but 49ers right tackle Mike McGlinchey understands he likely won’t return via NFL free agency.

Perhaps the bigger question for the San Francisco 49ers would be whether or not they’d re-sign soon-to-be free-agent right tackle Mike McGlinchey if they were swimming in salary-cap space.

According to Over the Cap, though, the Niners aren’t.

On the eve of NFL free agency, San Francisco has just over $6.4 million available, which is going to be far below what McGlinchey will earn on the open market, especially with him coming off his rookie contract after the 49ers drafted him in Round 1 back in 2018.

If the Niners had the cap space, they potentially would retain him as part of their re-signed free-agent class. At least those were the comments from general manager John Lynch to NBC Sports Bay Area:

"Could [McGlinchey] miss his market? Sure. Then would we be interested? Of course, we would.But I don’t see that happening. I see him being a coveted player."

McGlinchey also admitted earlier this offseason that he’d like to return but also acknowledged that money would play a role.

Given San Francisco’s cap situation, it’s not likely.

49ers poised to let Mike McGlinchey hit NFL free agency (and he knows it)

There are cornerstone players for whom teams will adjust cap space, doing so by extending, restructuring or cutting other players.

McGlinchey isn’t the kind of player who’d warrant those kinds of adjustments elsewhere.

As such, the 49ers aren’t going to create cap space to offer up a new contract that’d be worth what McGlinchey’s market value is expected to be. OTC valued him at $9.58 million based on his 2022 level of play, but it seems likely he’ll command much more than that on the open market.

Especially with a relatively weak class of offensive linemen in the 2023 NFL Draft.

Considering all the circumstances, McGlinchey appears to agree with Lynch about his soon-to-end tenure in the Bay Area, telling KNBR 680 the following:

"Obviously it’s something that was expected. The writing was kind of on the wall a little bit in that regard. John and Kyle [Shanahan] both had conversations with me before I left the building. It was something we all kind of expected. It’s definitely a tough deal. We have a lot of great players in the 49ers organization which is why we’ve been good for the last five years, and it makes it hard to afford everybody."

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McGlinchey also noted that he expects to have a decision made relatively soon into the NFL free agency period, which officially begins on March 15 with the start of the league new year.

Teams can begin negotiating with pending free agents two days prior, however.

If McGlinchey departs, the Niners will be tasked with finding his replacement, and it’ll be a challenge to at least match what he offered on the field in terms of his play.