Whether the 49ers should’ve selected a kicker with the 99th overall pick in this year’s draft is up for debate. Head coach Kyle Shanahan justified the selection by saying it was the only position where they felt they needed a starter. General manager John Lynch indicated on Bay Area radio that teams were trying to trade up in front of the 49ers to take Michigan kicker Jake Moody.
Regardless of any verbal support for the pick from inside the 49ers’ front office, San Francisco just needs Moody to be really good right away. If he is, any consternation over where he was taken would quickly go away and likely be forgotten forever.
The problem is for a kicker to be that impactful he has to be near perfect. Moody was perfect in college on his 148 extra points, but he connected on 86.7 percent of his field goals over his last two seasons when he was the primary placekicker.
While the team has expressed the utmost confidence in Moody, as has his college coach Jim Harbaugh, there’s a ton of pressure on the rookie to succeed in a job with perhaps the worst security in the NFL.
If Moody is an above-average kicker, the 49ers would likely be fine. However, it would continue to call into question just how valuable he is as a top-100 draft pick.
Consider that he was one of three kickers drafted. Another, Maryland’s Chad Ryland, went to the Patriots 13 picks later. Auburn’s Anders Carlson was the final K taken, and he went 207th overall. Meanwhile, the Rams scooped up the winner of the Lou Groza Award, which is given out to college football’s top kicker, in undrafted free agency.
This is why Moody needs to be awesome to justify the value. San Francisco conceivably could’ve waited until Round 6 to take a kicker, signed another undrafted one, and had them duke it out with veteran Zane Gonzalez for a roster spot. If Moody is just average or slightly above, it stands to reason San Francisco could’ve gotten a player of that quality well after the 99th pick.
The bottom line for Shanahan is that he doesn’t want to worry about the kicker position. It wasn’t an issue with veteran Robbie Gould in the building, and now the team made a huge investment in hopes that Moody will give them equal peace of mind. They invested time and resources into the position, and it’ll make sense if it pays off. The 49ers just need to hope they are absolutely correct about Moody and that he quickly becomes one of the NFL’s most reliable kickers.
