Enough was enough. The San Francisco 49ers made the difficult decision to part ways with kicker Jake Moody, their 2023 third-round draft pick, after his struggles carried into the 2025 season. Despite the 49ers' 17-13 win over the Seattle Seahawks in Week 1, Moody missed two of his three field goal attempts, raising serious concerns about his reliability moving forward.
Earlier this week, San Francisco waived Moody and signed veteran kicker Eddy Piñeiro as his replacement. General manager John Lynch joined Bay Area radio station KNBR on Thursday morning, where he shed light on the decision.
"That it wasn't an easy one," Lynch admitted. "I think of Jake's tenure here, had a really good rookie season. We were in the Super Bowl his rookie season. Obviously, second year, he's going along, really, at a high level, gets injured, and kind of a gruesome injury, tough deal for a kicker. Came back from that, and I think it was hard on him."
Moody's inconsistency resurfaced during the preseason and lingered into Week 1.
"When you miss kicks, that's a tough thing to deal with, and a lot of pressure on a team that had really high expectations," Lynch explained. "We came back the following year, and we wanted to have competition there to make Jake better, but also to have a true competition. I think it made Jake better. He had a really good offseason.
"We got to the preseason games, and all the way up to the Raiders and all that, where he missed one, then he kicks a 58 [yard field goal]. I thought the one when he kicked the 58-yarder, all right, this is going to take the monkey off his back, and here we go. We come back here [against the Chargers in the preseason], and he misses a PAT, and it's just that the pressure kind of mounted. And then, what happened up in Seattle."
Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan agreed it was time to make a change.
"And ultimately, you've got to make tough decisions," Lynch said. "As Kyle alluded to yesterday, they are tough decisions because he is a very talented young man, and likely to go on elsewhere and have success. And I hope that's the case for him because he's a great kid. He handled it well. Tough, but you've got to make decisions in the best interest of the team. And ultimately, Kyle and I said, 'Let's sleep on it' after Sunday night. And we woke up on Monday and had a conversation. We both felt that it was the right direction to go.
"Happy to have Eddy Piñeiro. He's had a nice career, has been very accurate throughout his career, and that gives you a good chance. We're gonna go move forward with that, and we wish Jake well moving forward himself."
The 49ers had previously brought in veteran Greg Joseph to compete with Moody this offseason, leading many to believe he might be the fallback option. Instead, San Francisco pursued Piñeiro, citing his accuracy and experience as key factors.
"Greg did a really nice job," Lynch said. "But, as I said, when you look at Eddy, like percentage-wise, the guy's been a really good kicker in our league, has experience with Brent Boyer at the Jets. He's also had experience with our holder, [P Thomas] Morstead. And so, there's a level of comfort. His résumé speaks for itself.
"We're fortunate he was out there, and so, we made that move, and we'll see how it goes. His résumé lends you to have a lot of confidence, and what we've seen already doubles down on that. Now we've got to go execute it. But, the guy's a seasoned guy who's done it before, and so, that bodes well for us."
Now, the 49ers hope Piñeiro can provide stability at a position that has been anything but steady over the last couple of seasons.
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