State of the Roster: 49ers’ non-competition at kicker highlights special teams
With 49ers OTAs in full swing, we’re taking a position-by-position look at the team’s roster to figure out the strengths, weaknesses, potential dark horses to make the team and other nuggets about the players who will be competing for jobs on the 53-man roster.
The 49ers for the third time in Kyle Shanahan’s tenure as head coach will undergo some changes in their trio of specialists.
Kicker Robbie Gould remains unsigned in free agency and it became clear early in the offseason that the 40-year-old kicker was done playing for the 49ers. He joined the club when Shanahan took over in 2017 and worked as a reliable option for them for six seasons. Now they’ll have to make a change at kicker.
This isn’t the first time the 49ers have had to shuffle the special teams deck. They let punter Brad Pinion walk after the 2018 season and drafted punter Mitch Wishnowsky, who earned a contract extension before last season. They also shuffled through some long snappers in 2020 before landing on Taybor Pepper who has played every game for the club since.
While the 49ers are carrying two kickers into training camp, there won’t really be a competition at that spot. Here’s a quick rundown of the specialists on the 90-man roster:
K Jake Moody
The 49ers selected Moody with the No. 99 overall pick in this year’s draft. While the selection was panned by most draft analysts, 49ers special teams coach Brian Schneider is bullish on the Michigan product. San Francisco has a ton of faith already in Moody for his skill set and his mental makeup. While it’d be ideal for him to turn into Justin Tucker, the 49ers would take it if Moody is just reliable for them moving forward.
K Zane Gonzalez
The 49ers traded for Gonzalez before the draft in a deal that saw them swap 2025 seventh-round picks with the Panthers. Given the impossibly low-stakes nature of the trade it’ll be easy for San Francisco to move on from the veteran placekicker. NBC Sports Matt Maiocco indicated on the 49ers Talk podcast that there isn’t a competition at kicker and the reason Gonzalez is on the roster is so the team can try to acquire a pick for him in a trade during camp.
P Mitch Wishnowsky
There won’t be a ton of long kicks coming off Wishnowsky’s right foot, but he’s come close to mastering the art of pinning teams inside the 20. Last year in the regular season he was tied for seventh in the NFL in punts inside the 20. He was also second in the league with just over a quarter of his kicks getting any kind of return.
LS Taybor Pepper
The 49ers were on the brink of a season-derailing special teams meltdown when Pepper arrived in 2020. San Francisco’s longsnapper Kyle Nelson got the yips during a Week 3 win over the Giants. Then Jon Condo stepped in for one week before retiring. That’s when Pepper stepped in and he’s not let go of the long snapper job since. A consistent field goal operation is a good thing to have, and that starts with the LS.
State of the Roster
Here are the other positions covered so far in our State of the Roster series:
