Joe Staley Signs Off

Joe Staley said his final hello and goodbye to the Bay Area media Tuesday afternoon.

But before he spoke, Patrick Willis, George Kittle and Mike McGlinchey spoke for him. Paid tribute to the greatest left tackle in 49ers franchise history.

“Our rookie year, we hung out,” Willis said Tuesday on a video conference. “Getting to know him, I learned that he was a tight end (in college) and he moved to tackle. When I heard that, I knew he was the prime guy for his position. And there were times he lined up at tight end and caught the ball. He had some big catches. Just a phenomenal guy.”

And a phenomenal left tackle. Staley went to six Pro Bowls during his NFL career. Recently, the NFL Network named him to the All-Decade team for the 2010s. He was an elite player and a leader and mentor for the younger players. The total package.

“One of my first memories of Joe,” George Kittle said on a video conference, “after an OTA practice, just completely out of the blue he came up and put his arm around me and said, ‘If you don’t screw this up, you could actually be a decent football player, so just keep your head on straight.’ That was the whole conversation. I never will forget that one.”

Staley knew what he was talking about. Maybe he has a future as an NFL scout.

Or he could be an offensive line coach. He is the gold-standard of NFL offensive linemen. The Platonic ideal of a left tackle.

“He affected 15 years worth of offensive linemen,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said of Staley. “When you watch how an offensive tackle is supposed to play football in a complete game, Joe was the most complete offensive tackle of his generation.”

McGlinchey spoke with love and deep admiration.

Staley spoke last on the video conference. He sat in his trophy room, surrounded by helmets and jerseys and plaques, and spoke for more than a half hour about his career and retirement.

“I was absolutely overwhelmed and blown away by the response from everybody,” Staley said. “All the work the Niners did on their end to do little tribute videos -- that meant so much to me. I’m a lineman. It’s our job to not be noticed. It’s our job to do the grunt work. It was really cool of them to do all that stuff.”

No more grunt work for Staley. The best left tackle in 49ers franchise history finally has time to reflect. And as he spoke to reporters, he explained why he chose now to retire.

“Last year should have been the pinnacle of my career. We had an absolutely unbelievable team. But for me personally, it was really, really difficult because of the injuries. I had the broken leg. Broke my finger. Had to have surgery on that. I had a back thing. And I’ve had neck stuff that has been going on for a little bit. It just got worse and worse as the season went on.

“After the season was done, I went and saw a bunch of different doctors to get a lot of different opinions of what’s going on. I was in contact with the Niners the whole time. Tried to be as open and honest as I could, because it was really important for me to make sure that I wasn’t screwing them over. I knew the draft basically was the deadline. So I went to Kyle and John and talked to them the week of the draft, gave them my final answer.”

And that’s when Staley’s career officially ended.

As his video conference came to an end, Staley made one final statement.

“This feels really weird right now,” Staley said, choking up. “It has been really, really, really cool getting to know everyone one of you guys over the years and developing personal relationships, talking about different things that deal with football, don’t deal with football. I’m going to miss it.”

Staley started to cry. “I didn’t want to do this,” he said, his hand covering his face.

“We can let you go, Joe,” a P.R. director interjected. “I think everyone here knows you.”

“No,” Staley insisted. “I’m able to talk. I came from Central Michigan and didn’t know anything about media, talking to people. I was super nervous about talking to our local student newspaper guy that was going to interview me in 2004. Coming into the NFL locker room and having cameras and stuff in your face and getting asked a lot of different things, you guys always treated me with a ton of respect, treated my family with a ton of respect.”

Staley paused. He didn’t know what to say, but he didn’t want to stop talking. He didn’t want the end to come. “Man, I’m going to miss football a lot,” he said with a sigh. “I love football a ton. I don’t know what else to say. I’m just going to ramble. I just want you guys all to know that I really appreciate every one of you.”

And then Joe Staley signed off for the last time.

Bye, Joe. Hope to see you again some day.