The San Francisco 49ers have seen enough from Jake Moody. The team is waiving the third-year kicker, a league source said Tuesday, following a shaky opener in Seattle.
It’s not yet clear who will replace him. Veteran Greg Joseph, who was with the team in training camp, remains a free agent.
Moody, whom the 49ers drafted in the third round (No. 99) in 2023, converted only one of three field goal attempts in Sunday’s game against the Seattle Seahawks, missing off the left upright from 27 yards and having a 36-yard attempt blocked. He made a 32-yarder to tie the score at 10 in the fourth quarter, and San Francisco went on to win 17-13.
After the game, coach Kyle Shanahan said he had “no question” that Moody would remain the team’s kicker, but he later added his opinion could change. Speaking Monday, he said all options were on the table.
Moody, 25, made 21 of 25 field goal attempts (84 percent) as a rookie but struggled in 2024, going 24-of-34 (70.6 percent), with nine of his 10 misses coming after he returned from an ankle injury in Week 9. The 49ers signed the 31-year-old Joseph for competition this offseason but released him during training camp, ending the kicking battle abruptly because they needed more roster spots with injuries mounting elsewhere on the depth chart.
In the preseason, Moody went from goat to hero against the Las Vegas Raiders, missing a 53-yarder and barely connecting from 26 yards before hitting from 44 yards to tie and 59 yards to win as time expired.
Moody was the highest kicker drafted since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took Roberto Aguayo in Round 2 (No. 59) in 2016. No other kickers have been selected before Round 4 since 2005.
Moody’s struggles continue
The 49ers thought Moody was the most talented kicker to come out of college in recent memory, which is why they used a third-round pick on him in 2023 and why they stuck with him through his 2024 struggles. That third-round status, however, proved to be an onus. Moody had been the highest-drafted kicker since Aguayo in 2016. Aguayo flamed out spectacularly — he was gone a year later — which made the league gun-shy about drafting kickers in the first three rounds. That is, until Moody came out of Michigan. Evaluators raved about his poise and accuracy, noting he’d be especially good on kickoffs because he could place the ball in specific spots. That, however, never materialized.
Two of Moody’s kickoffs on Sunday, for example, went into the end zone for touchbacks. After a dismal 2024 season, Moody changed his kicking style, going from a three-step approach to two steps to get the ball away more quickly. In hindsight, that appeared to underscore his lack of confidence in his kicking. In the end, his high draft status only increased the scrutiny and criticism of the kicker. Hitting field goals in the NFL already is difficult for young players. The burden of being a high draft pick (for a kicker, at least) only added another layer of difficulty. — Matt Barrows, 49ers beat writer
(Photo: John Froschauer / Associated Press)
Source link
