Mike McGlinchey could be the NFL Draft’s hardest offensive tackle to figure out

Retired NFL defensive end Stephen White sees an impressive blocker with some concerns.

In the four games of his that I watched there were plays where Mike McGlinchey looked like an offensive tackle worthy of a top-10 pick.

But there were a few other plays that give me pause.

Let me start off with the positives, because there were plenty of them.

One of my favorite things about McGlinchey is how hard he comes off on the snap of the football when he is run blocking.

That guy consistently fired off the ball and came out of his hips to shock defensive linemen and punch them back, so to speak.

That kind of push came in handy on short-yardage plays.

He had some really impressive pancakes in those our games as well.

At his best McGlinchey could make his opponents look like they didn’t even belong on the same field with him.

Along with being a hammer at the line of scrimmage, McGlinchey also had pretty good feet when getting up to the second level.

Every once in a while you might see him help his left guard by caving in the 3-technique, but still stay on balance enough to get up on the linebacker and knock him back, too.

McGlinchey consistently looked smooth, fast, and athletic getting out on the perimeter to block on screen plays and it usually didn’t end well for whomever ended up in his sights.

While he wasn’t called on to do it often, McGlinchey also did a nice job of pulling across the formation on counter plays as well.

What I’m trying to say here is McGlinchey was one hell of a run blocker most of the time in the four games I watched. I would expect for that to be the case in the NFL, too.

I was even more enamored with McGlinchey’s potential as a pass blocker on the next level.

On the overwhelming majority of pass plays in those four games McGlinchey looked great executing his kick step, shooting his punch, and not getting over extended in any direction which allowed him to have great success staying in front of his guy.

Didn’t matter whether it was a power rush, an edge rush, or a combination of the two ... most of the time McGlinchey had all that shit on lock!

Most of the time ...

On more than a few passing plays McGlinchey legit looked like a top-10 pick at left tackle. Especially with his size at 6’8 and around 310 pounds with arms that are 34 inches long.

You just can’t find many guys that size, who are that explosive off the ball, that athletic, and have technique as sound as McGlinchey’s

However ...

The fact that McGlinchey did get beat as a pass blocker is concerning because he was beaten so easily and cleanly on some of them.

Everybody gets beat sometimes, but for a guy who looked so good on most of his passing plays, those losses by McGlinchey stood out like a sore thumb.

The sack he gave up against Stanford where the dude bullrushed him into a split had McGlinchey looking mighty suspect.

The other two sacks McGlinchey gave up both came in the fourth quarter. In both instances the pass rusher forced the quarterback into a fumble which the opposing team recovered.

Maybe the one against Miami wasn’t so bad since the game wasn’t close. McGlinchey may have been fooled by their blitz, which contributed to him barely laying a hand on the 3-technique as he beat McGlinchey around the edge.

However, the sack he gave up against Georgia came with just 1:36 left in the game on a first-and-10 from Notre Dame’s own 35-yard line and with the “Fighting Irish” only down one point.

Of course it would have been bad to give a sack up at any time, but you just can’t have it in that situation.

So while there really is a lot to like about McGlinchey’s tape, there was also some things to be concerned about as well.

I see him as being a quality starter in the NFL at either tackle spot, and maybe somewhere down the road he will be a Pro Bowler. I do wonder how he will do when he sees more speed rushers NFL who who will actually challenge him around the edge. He may need some help with chip blocks at first, but most young tackles too.

I could see Mike McGlinchey going in the first round, especially as a right tackle, and being a cornerstone on the offensive line for a team for the next seven to 10 years. He certainly looks the part and most of the time in the our games I watched he played the part well, too.

If he can get better at handling those speed rushes, he has the potential to eventually become an All-Pro type player with his size, power, and athleticism, but that is usually a lot easier said than done.

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Since I don’t have access to all-22 for college football games, I use the next best thing for my draft profiles and go to Draft Breakdown where they post the TV copy of a bunch of top prospects’ games already cut up and ready to go. For the purposes of this breakdown I watched Mike McGlinchey play against Georgia, Boston College, Miami, and Stanford. Those represented second, third, 10th, and 12th games on Notre Dame’s schedule last season, respectively.