Jake Moody’s career hasn’t gone quite the way he or the San Francisco 49ers hoped when he was selected with the No. 99 overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft.
Moody struggled out of the gate as a rookie, but righted the ship and actually finished his first year strong. He didn’t pick up where he left off last season and wound up having a disastrous year that for the first time put his job in jeopardy.
The 49ers this offseason signed veteran kicker Greg Joseph which seemed to indicate there would be some competition for the team’s starting kicker job. However, it wasn’t a certainty. San Francisco traded for kicker Zane Gonzalez in Moody’s rookie year, but there was never any real competition. Gonzalez was in the building in case Moody was a genuine disaster.
Joseph doesn’t have the same role in this year’s camp. Special teams coach Brant Boyer on Friday in a press conference confirmed there’s a legitimate competition happening between Moody and the veteran.
“It should develop into a really good competition,” Boyer said. “I think they could have kicked a little better today, but they both have done a hell of a job, done everything we’ve asked. I think with the addition with [P Thomas] Morstead and [LS Jon] Weeks they’ve adjusted the operation really well. And I think it’s going to be a really good competition as we get into camp and those preseason games.”
This is the first time Moody’s job has ever been in genuine danger and it’s unlikely we’ll see a resolution to the kicker battle until the very end of the preseason. Moody probably has the inside track if the two players are equal in camp, but he’ll have to fend off a quality veteran to maintain his role.
He told reporters Friday in his own press conference that he’s made some mechanical changes to his kicking motion that he thinks will help him this season. Perhaps those changes help him win the job and get him on a track toward consistency after two less-than-stellar years.
“Well, I think consistency is the biggest thing,” Boyer said. “Anybody can go out there and make four kicks in a row or something like that in a practice. But if you can do it over time, and they can see the consistency and the ball flight and everything like that is the same every time, there’s something to be said for that, the times and everything else. If a guy misses, can the other guy make right after? That’s all the kind of stuff that you look for, the competitiveness. That’s what I want to see. And these guys are doing a really good job so far, and like I said, I thought they could have had a better day today, but they’re doing a good job so far.”
Getting on that track for Moody will first mean winning a real competition for the first time in his career.
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This article originally appeared on Niners Wire: 49ers roster: K Jake Moody in serious competition with Greg Joseph