The 49ers kicker could be here to stay after all.
The San Francisco 49ers were officially eliminated from the playoffs last weekend, losing 29-17 to the Miami Dolphins to fall to 6-9 on the season.
It was another mistake-filled game for the 49ers, who have really struggled to close out games and capitalize on opportunities in 2024.
While there were many chances that San Francisco missed out on, the turning point seemed to be early in the third quarter when the 49ers had a chance to potentially take the lead down 16-10.
On their first possession of the second half, the 49ers drove all the way down to the two-yard line, but an illegal formation penalty killed a third-down conversion, instead eventually setting up a 41-yard field goal attempt that kicker Jake Moody missed.
That kick was a killer for the 49ers and represented a growing issue this season, as Moody has significantly struggled in 2024, making just 76.7 percent of his kicks on the year, which ranks 31st in the NFL.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan, who had been a vocal supporter of Moody all year, spoke his mind postgame, leading to questions about the kicker’s future in San Francisco.
“I mean, [my confidence in Jake Moody] wasn’t good out there missing that kick,” Shanahan acknowledged after the game. “I don’t know exactly what happened on the snap and the hold, but that’s one he’s got to make.”
Moody, a third-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, is yet another player in San Francisco’s 2023 class that has struggled early in his NFL career, and could potentially be on his way to being the next third-round miss for the 49ers.
However, Shanahan had a change of heart on Thursday, as he instead extended a vote of confidence for Moody, inferencing that other factors have been the reason for Moody’s issues this year.
“I still feel the same about him, that I believe he is going to be our guy,” Shanahan said on Thursday. “Everyone has got to perform and do things like that and I think he has had a tough year. I think before his high ankle sprain, I think he was like, missed one, I think he was 12 of 13 before that. So I thought he was doing really well and then had a high ankle sprain to his kicking foot. Since he’s come back, he hasn’t been as consistent, obviously.”
“But I think a lot of that probably has to do with that, just common sense wise. And hopefully, he can get to this offseason, heal up and find a stroke again and play at a high level that I think he will because he’s real talented. I think he’s made of the right stuff just from a mental standpoint and everything and I think he has all the tools to be a great kicker in this league. He’s still working to find that though.”
Now, while he confidently said that Moody was going to be the team’s kicker, Shanahan didn’t oppose having a kicker competition in the offseason.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” Shanahan said about having a kicker competition. “I think you’ve got the wrong guy if you have to. You do that when you don’t think you’re going to have a guy, but when those guys miss too much you go get a new one usually. And that’s what’s tough about the kicker position. That’s what’s tough. I remember we were in Washington and we had a young kicker who missed a number of kicks, but I didn’t have much experience with kicking then. I remember I kept telling the head coach that he’s cost us two games, when are we going to move on from this guy? And he kept telling me how talented he was, ‘You’ve got to be patient.’ But then he lost us a third game and then the head coach had to make a move, but two years later that guy was the highest-paid kicker in the league and going to Pro Bowls.”
“So he was right, we had to be patient. But how long can you do it? And so, I think that’s just what’s tough with that position. There are no backups and stuff like that, so that’s what the challenge is. But I believe we’ve got the right guy and I think that eventually, I think he has shown that at times, thought he showed that at times his rookie year. I thought he showed that big time being 12 out of 13 to start this year. And I think he’ll show us all that in the future.”
Shanahan isn’t wrong. There have been a number of stories across the NFL where kickers struggle at their first or second stop before finding their footing as a consistent option.
However, kicker is the one position in the NFL where you can’t wait for development, because their struggles can directly be the difference between wins and losses, as Moody has seen in his early NFL career.
“I think if you have the talent, someone like Jake, I think that’s everything,” Shanahan continued. “I think the mental part of the game is huge. How you react to these things. I think it’s the same thing with quarterbacks. You watch some backup quarterbacks come in for a starter, play really well. They do it for a couple games, then they have their three-pick game and they get killed and then you see how they respond to that.
“Some guys come back and some guys it kind of breaks and they want to go back to not having as much pressure on them. So, I think that’s a huge part of this game with every position. But when it comes to the kicker, since it’s such a specialty and a deal that really only they deal with, I think the mental part’s as big as anything.”
The talent isn’t the problem with Moody. He’s shown the capability of hitting long 50+ yard field goals. The issue is consistency and that hasn’t been there since he showed up in the NFL, which makes the questionable decision to burn a third-round pick on the kicker even more concerning.
The 49ers absolutely have to bring in another kicker this offseason if they want to ride out the Moody train for another season. And if the current results continue, they may be moving on from yet another third round pick after just two offseasons.