Running back Frank Gore isn’t the only impending free agent veteran giving thoughts to playing for the 49ers during the 2021 season.
Center Alex Mack has also given some thought to a future with the team. Mack played for 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan when Shanahan was an offensive coordinator in Cleveland and Atlanta. He said Shanahan runs “a very smart offense” and called the prospect of playing in it again an appealing one.
“Kyle is an incredible coach,” Mack said, via Matt Maiocco of NBCSportsBayArea.com. “He’s an incredible coach, great person, strong motivator and runs an offense that is something that I’d know really well and that I performed very well in. Yeah, that said, they [the 49ers] are a very enticing thing.”
Mack turned 35 in November and spent the last five seasons with the Falcons. The 49ers started Ben Garland, Hroniss Grasu, and Daniel Brunskill at center during the 2020 season. Garland and Grasu are set to be unrestricted free agents while Brunskill will be a restricted free agent.
The 49ers also have Weston Richburg on the roster, although he missed the entire season after tearing his patellar tendon in 2019. The 49ers would save nearly $4.5 million in cap space by releasing him, but would have nearly $7 million in dead money to go with it.