Seven 49ers players among PFT’s top 100 free agents list for 2023

The San Francisco 49ers have 20 players scheduled to become unrestricted free agents at the start of the new league year on March 15. The team has retained one of its impending free agents, long snapper Taybor Pepper, re-signing him to a three-year deal this week.

Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk posted a ranking of her top 100 impending free agents for the 2023 offseason and will update it as signings, tags, and re-signings occur.

Seven 49ers players landed within the Pro Football Talk ranking. The most notable is quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, who head coach Kyle Shanahan has already stated is unlikely to return. The veteran passer isn’t the highest-ranked Niner on the list, though. That honor belongs to offensive tackle Mike McGlinchey.

The offensive lineman would love to return to the team that drafted him but understands the NFL is a business, and relocating is often part of that.

“I think that they value me here,” McGlinchey said last month. “I think that they enjoy having me around, and I think I can play football at a very high level. So everything’s on the table. I think you got to keep a very open mind with this stuff, but you also have to be real about it too, because there’s a lot of damn good football players in our locker room, and a lot of them that need to be paid. And we certainly got one (Bosa) that’s going to break the entire bank.”

McGlinchey admitted that he hopes the 49ers don’t use the franchise tag on him. With just $8 million in salary-cap space and some of that needing to go toward its rookie class, San Francisco is unlikely to use the franchise tag on any player this offseason.

Below are the 49ers players that landed on Pro Football Talk’s top 100 free agents of 2023 list and where they ranked.