SANTA CLARA — Jake Moody missed another kick on Saturday.
It should be his last miss in a 49ers uniform.
The 49ers kicker pulled a 33-yard extra-point attempt left of the uprights in the Niners’ preseason finale against the Chargers on Saturday, cementing a preseason and training camp where the embattled kicker only invited more questions about why he remained the team’s top kicker.
Yes, Moody made a 59-yard field goal to beat the Raiders last Saturday — a kick that, if you listened to folks with the team, apparently righted all the wrongs of the past year and this preseason.
“I think he showed the moxie he has,” special teams coordinator Brant Boyer said of that game-winning kick.
Or, to phrase it differently, Moody has a “great personality,” which is what you say when you’re trying to set up a friend with someone who is butt-ugly. (I’m sure I was described that way to my beautiful, out-of-my-league now-wife.)
Moxie? Who cares? There’s only one thing that matters with kickers: making kicks. Moody doesn’t do that often enough.
Did Moody have “moxie” when he put a kickoff eight yards out of bounds in the third quarter, nearly taking out a cheerleader and giving the Chargers the ball at the 40-yard line?
(The fact that Boyer — who was fuming after the bad kickoff — didn’t go full Urban Meyer and kick Moody when they passed each other on the sidelines shows how much of a pro he is.)
The Niners have been afraid of looking like fools by cutting Moody, a third-round pick from 2023. They would be admitting they made the wrong call when they used pick No. 99 on a kicker.
But the Niners’ front office is too late — far too late — if they’re trying to avoid being laughed at.
Things became so ridiculous on Saturday that the energy in the home crowd rose anytime Moody lined up to kick the ball. His makes were met with raucous, sarcastic cheers.
The people have spoken: The Niners made the wrong call at the end of last season and the beginning of this one. Every mistake Moody makes only further highlights that fact.
Compounding the 49ers’ fear of moving on is the bizarre belief that Moody will sign with another team and look good. After all, he must be so talented if the Niners used that draft capital on him, right?
So instead of finding a kicker that can, you know, make kicks, the Niners decided to continue to suffer through Moody’s poor performances, wasting valuable time to try out other kickers this August, including Greg Joseph, who was signed this offseason a sham kicking competition that ended weeks ago.
What’s so strange about the Niners’ Moody love is that the team has shown the ability to admit mistakes in the past. Moody was taken just ahead of Cam Latu, pick No. 101 in 2023. Latu, a tight end, was so bad for the Niners that they saw no reason to keep him around after one training camp, putting him on injured reserve without designation to return and then cutting him at the start of the following season.
I guess Latu lacked moxie.
The Niners don’t have to live like this. They aren’t indebted to a kicker.
So let’s name some guys: Matt Prater, Eddy Pineiro, Michael Badgley, Zane Gonzalez, Austin Seibert, and Cade York are all unsigned free agents. A slew of kickers will be released between today and Tuesday’s NFL cut-down day, like the Jets’ Harrison Mevis or the loser of the Panthers’ kicking competition between Matthew Wright (the Niners’ best kicker last season) and rookie Ryan Fitzgerald or the Colts’ between Spencer Shrader and Maddux Trujillo. There are NFL-caliber kickers that spent their past springs in the UFL, including Rodrigo Blankenship and Chris Blewitt. (Meanwhile, Joseph made five field goals for the Giants Thursday night.)
And yet the Niners actively decided that keeping Moody was the best way to win games in 2025 for the last nine months — looking for any reason to justify keeping him on the roster.
What has Moody done to deserve such loyalty?
What has he done to repay it?
Moody spent the last week missing a 53-yard kick in Las Vegas and then barely squeezing in a chip-shot on his next kick. Then he missed from 47 and 53 yards in practice on Thursday, followed by the should-be-fateful missed extra point and errant kickoff Saturday.
So, no, his career was not changed by that 59-yard preseason make.
But his 49ers career should end because of his latest miss.
Moody is, by all accounts, a decent person who does have an NFL-caliber leg. It’s not his fault the Niners errantly decided to make him the fifth kicker taken in the top 100 picks this century, putting undue pressure on him to be not just good, but great.
But forget all that stuff and his so-called moxie. This is professional football — results are all that matter.
This Moody charade should have ended so many times already. If it doesn’t end in the 56 hours between Sunday at 5 a.m. and Tuesday at 1 p.m. — when rosters need to be trimmed — it will be the clearest sign yet that the 49ers’ front office cares more about their egos than winning football games in 2025.
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