Three weeks after being sentenced to one day in jail and three years of probation for his 2018 guilty plea on insider trading charges, Mychal Kendricks has found an NFL home. The longtime Eagles linebacker, best known recently as an on-again, off-again starter with the Seahawks, is fresh off a visit with the 49ers and will sign with San Francisco ahead of the 2021 campaign, NFL Network reports.
The Niners, who fell to the Chiefs on Saturday in their preseason opener, just recently extended star linebacker Fred Warner and could look to lock up fellow starter Dre Greenlaw down the road. With other linebackers, including Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles and projected outside starter Azeez Al-Shaair, nursing injuries, Kendricks represents emergency depth with the regular season fast approaching.
The 30-year-old veteran is entering his 10th season and coming off three straight years affected by either injury or suspension. He played just one game in 2020, for Washington Football Team, after a stint on the Seahawks' practice squad. Prior to that, Kendricks spent two additional seasons in Seattle, playing just four games in 2018 amid an eight-week NFL suspension as a result of his insider-trading charges as well as a broken tibia that landed him on injured reserve; then starting 14 as one of the Seahawks' primary defenders in 2019, before landing on IR again with a torn ACL.
Kendricks, who spent the first six years of his career with the Eagles, winning Super Bowl LII with Philadelphia in 2017, was sentenced for his insider trading in late July. Multiple reports indicated at the time that he was free to resume his NFL career. Kendricks was initially charged in August 2018, allegedly earning about $1.2 million from 2013-2015 by relaying insider information to a former Goldman Sachs analyst. Kendricks is the brother of Vikings Pro Bowl linebacker Eric Kendricks.
