Broncos' RT Mike McGlinchey 'Couldn't Stand' Russell Wilson
When the Denver Broncos landed free-agent right tackle Mike McGlinchey, they got one of the good ones. Long has the right tackle position plagued the Broncos, but McGlinchey, a former lynchpin on the San Francisco 49ers' offensive line, comes as close to 'set and forget' as this team has perhaps ever had.
Head coach Sean Payton's discerning eye quickly recognized McGlinchey's value as a player, and the Broncos, with the full backing of the team's new ownership group, rolled out the Brinks truck to sign him. Denver inked McGlinchey to a five-year deal worth $87.5 million, with $35 million fully guaranteed.
As a former top-10 draft pick in San Francisco, McGlinchey competed for the Niners for five years. In four of those seasons, he had to square off with Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks.
“For the longest time, I really couldn’t stand Russell because of how many times he beat us," McGlinchey said on Thursday following an OTA practice at Broncos HQ.
Call it 'competitive envy,' which is a concept any Broncos fan should be familiar with relative to their feelings for, say, Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City. But now that McGlinchey shares a locker room with Wilson, and his preeminent purview is to protect the veteran quarterback (along with running the ball), his opinion has changed.
"To be in the locker room with him and to be able to be in the huddle with him now has been awesome," McGlinchey said of Wilson. "I think Russ, first and foremost, he’s a workhorse. There’s nobody in the building that works harder than him. He’s addicted to this game and he’s addicted to trying to be great. And that rubs off on a lot of people and there’s a reason that he’s had the success in this league that he’s had. I’m excited for what we can all do together because I think with Coach [Payton] with us, with the talent that we have on this team, I think that we have a really good shot to help Russ get to even higher heights than he’s been.”
Prior to arriving in Denver via a blockbuster trade with Seattle, Wilson was widely regarded as being on a Hall-of-Fame path. In fact, many analysts considered Wilson's 10-year body of work in Seattle as already qualifying him for the hallowed halls of Canton, OH.
And that may be true. If Wilson were to wake up tomorrow morning and announce his retirement, it's likely that he would one day still find his way to the Hall of Fame.
After all, not only is he the only quarterback to lead the Seahawks to a World Championship, he became just the second African American signal-caller to win it all, and he produced eight playoff berths in a decade in Seattle.
None of that even mentions the individual accolades Wilson stacked up, which includes nine Pro Bowl selections, a second-team All-Pro nod, and a Walter Payton Man of the Year award. He led the NFL in passer rating in 2015 and paced the league in passing touchdowns in 2017. Wilson was an elite NFL QB.
There's a reason the Broncos relinquished the king's ransom they did to secure Wilson's services. But, isn't it amazing how quickly the perception of a player can change in one short year?
Most shrewd NFLers see Wilson's 2022 campaign as a bump in the road, fueled by the perfect storm of bad factors, including an incompetent coach, a team that offered few checks and balances, injuries to himself, and a veritable epidemic of health misfortune befalling his most key teammates in Denver.
However, even acknowledging all those issues, there's something Wilson brings to the table that few quarterbacks can: the experience of having summited the NFL pinnacle. That experience, which goes hand-in-glove with the live-bullet navigation of playoff game after playoff game, separates Wilson from most of his peers.
Combine that with Payton's experience as a Super Bowl-winning head coach, and McGlinchey sees a special set of attributes the new-look Broncos now bring to the table.
“I think it’s huge. I think experience matters," McGlinchey said. "I think putting yourself in the biggest moments and experiencing the biggest moments and what those emotions feel like, and what it takes to get there, is something that is certainly incredibly valuable. I think having that championship pedigree trickles down to everybody else. There’s a blueprint to how to have success in this league, and I think the two of them have certainly found it. I believe that I have as well.”
Indeed, McGlinchey knows a thing or two about what it takes to win at this level. Since head coach Kyle Shanahan arrived in San Fran in 2017, the Niners have done a lot of winning, and McGlinchey was there to experience every obstacle and triumph along the way.
"I went to three title games," McGlinchey said. "Seven minutes away from winning one, and that’s the only thing that motivates you to get back. This team is capable of that. We have a head coach that has been there and done that, and I think that everybody is champing at the bit to be able to turn this franchise around and start winning games for Denver.”
Broncos Country knows well that, especially at this time of year, such talk comes cheap. But after seven years of living in the NFL doldrums, I dare to say that it's starting to feel different.
This time around, I can't help but catch the vibe that the guys espousing such optimistic talk in Denver are, correspondingly, the self-same who can walk the walk. and they have the skins on the wall to prove it. If you want to talk about trickle-down football, Payton's arrival changes everything at Broncos HQ.
That extreme coaching competence touches every aspect of the operation and has been the missing ingredient in Denver for years. That will all be revealed in due time.
There's a lot more that McGlinchey said that is worth analyzing. But I'll save that for another article.
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