Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports
‘We were worried we were going to lose you,’ Kyle Shanahan tells new 49ers punter Mitch Wishnowsky
Apr 27, 2019 at 10:28 AM
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The San Francisco 49ers shocked a lot of the fanbase by drafting former Utah punter
Mitch Wishnowsky during the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft on Saturday. Here is how the team's decision-makers greeted their new Australian special teams weapon, who can also handle kickoffs.
Using a fourth-round pick on a punter may seem like a reach, especially for a team looking to fill so many other roster holes, but head coach Kyle Shanahan told the emotional Wishnowsky that he was a target all along.
"You were a target from the beginning," Shanahan hold him via a phone call. "We were worried we were going to lose you, but we got you here, man, so we're pumped up."
Even Wishnowsky was surprised to be selected in the fourth round.
"You think punters normally get taken, like it sort of starts in the fifth," he told reporters via a conference call after being drafted. "I feel like I really got along with coach [special teams coordinator Richard Hightower] and coach [assistant special teams coach Stan Kwan], and I was hoping it would be San Fran.
"I think San Fran were about two picks away, and I got a call, and I was like, 'What? You are kidding me.' Unbelievable."
A shoulder injury ended Wishnowsky's Australian League football career and opened the door to playing American football.
"I had two operations on my left shoulder, which sort of took me out of the action in the Aussie rules football," he said. "And then I sort of just for fun would go down and play flag American football with a couple of my mates at a park, and basically was seen there punting and messing around by a guy called Craig Wilson, who knows Nathan Chapman and John Smith at ProKick Australia. Then a few months later I was out fishing and got a call from John, and John told me he would change my life, send me to America, all that good stuff.
"I went home, told my folks that John Smith is going to send me to America, and they thought I was smoking something. I ended up just handing in my resignation at work, moving to Melbourne for a year to train and learn the standard two-punt spiral because we sort of learned to punt on the run in Australian football.
"Yeah, moved to Santa Barbara to junior college, played one year, did 18 months to finish my AA degree and then went to Utah for three."
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