For the first time in 13 years, Joe Staley won’t be a member of the San Francisco 49ers. That statement is bizarre and entirely uncomfortable. Staley said as much on Tuesday, in what became an emotional, virtual press conference addressing his retirement.
“This feels really weird, right now,” Staley said, more than a half hour after fielding questions with reporters about how his decision came to be.
Not long after, the six-time Pro Bowler, three-time second-team and All-Decade Team left tackle, who’d been his (mostly) usual funny, insightful self, failed to hold the dam. With the questions over, Staley had a message he, and he alone had to deliver.
He shook his head as the tears came.
“Oh boy,” Staley said. “I didn’t want to do this.”
After thanking reporters for his experiences with them over the last dozen-plus years, drawing upon his experience being scared to even talk to the student newspaper reporter when he was at Central Michigan, he got through the endearing, statement, which, in typical self-deprecating fashion, he termed “rambling.”
“I’m going to miss football a lot,” Staley said.
Quickly after, the longtime elder statesman for the 49ers turned off the waterworks and got back to the important business at hand: making sure Mike McGlinchey didn’t take over the Joe Show.
“Don’t let Mike take that over, please,” Staley said.
Staley filled that roughly 35-minute call with honest self-reflection and hysterical vignettes — when he visited McGlinchey’s house, saw his high school No. 74 jersey and joked that his ‘hero’ was in the house, not realizing that, McGlinchey actually did idolize Staley, and that’s why he wore that jersey.
“He’s like, ‘Yeah, and I was nervous for you to see that.’ I was like, ‘Wait, you’re serious.’ ‘I really did [idolize you], yeah.’”
In typical Staley fashion, that ball-busting was mediated by and coupled with earnestness.
“There’s not a lot of guys in the NFL that would choose an offensive lineman to be their favorite player,” Staley said. “But Mike is one of them because, you know, Mike’s a weird guy.”
Staley doesn’t know what he’s going to do next. He’ll probably need surgery, like most ex-NFL players do, but that’s somewhere at a nebulous place in the future. His focus is health and his family: his daughters, Grace, and Audrey, and his wife, Carrie — whose professional and collegiate soccer trophies and jerseys were plastered around his office.
To be clear, there are preliminary offers on the table: he’s talked to the 49ers about reuniting in some form or fashion, something that he’s “very interested in.” He’s had inquiries from media folks, discussions with his agent about potential offensive line training or coaching.
“I don’t have like a definitive plan,” Staley said. “I’ve kind of just gone through this whole thing, just really gonna take one year, and just enjoy tying to be healthy and being around the house as much as I can and then sure I’ll go, stir crazy around here… whatever I’m gonna be doing I’m gonna be working really hard at it, hopefully I’ll be a lot lighter and a lot better shape and be healthier… and just be the best family man, best dad I can be, and just working incredibly hard at whatever, whatever it is.”
He’s not going to disappear from the 49ers, nor the game of football though, that’s for sure.
“I still have a huge love for the game of football obviously and I think I can definitely serve in some capacity because I have a lot of knowledge and I feel like I’m a pretty good teacher so I would love to get into coaching possibly down the road,” Staley said. “But if not that, maybe some kind of, I don’t know, what the word is, consulting maybe. But I definitely won’t be a stranger around or nothing like that.”
For as humble as Staley is, he does care about his legacy, saying being named to the All-Decade team of the 2010s “meant a lot” because it effectively looks at a player’s entire career.
He has an idea of how he’d like to be remembered.
“I don’t want to be remembered as like a guy that had a couple plays here and there,” Staley said.” I just want to be remembered as a guy that gave his all every single day like. People in the locker room can say like’ hey this guy was as consistent on June 14 as he was during a playoff game. The guy treated every single moment the exact same,’ and I think that is something that I always try to strive for was just to be consistent performer and try to take my job as serious as I could every single day. That’s what would be important to me.”