49ers draft punter in the 4th, raising questions about decision-making

The need was there, but is this a proper value play?

The San Francisco 49ers spent a fourth round pick on punter Mitch Wishnowsky, and you know that excites me. Well, drafting a punter makes me happy. Spending a fourth round pick on the position? It raises some question marks.

Any time a special teams player is draft before the sixth round, eyebrows are raised. When it happens in the fourth round, there are usually strong responses. The 49ers needed a punter, so you can’t fault filling said need. But could they have landed Wishnowsky later?

In the phone call to Wishnowsky, head coach Kyle Shanahan told him they were worried they would not be able to land him. He did not offer any more specifics, but it would suggest they thought someone else was interested in Wishnowsky in the fourth. The 49ers spent the 110th overall pick on Wishnowsky, and the next punter off the board was Stanford’s Jake Bailey to the New England Patriots at No. 163.

The Patriots sent a seventh to the Philadelphia Eagles to move up four spots to land Bailey. After the draft, John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan both acknowledged the Patriots and others were likely interested.

Lynch: “We had a number of teams that we felt were interested in adding a punter and felt like he had distanced himself, and the fact he kicks off and is a very good holder, as well. So, all those things fit into the puzzle.”

Shanahan: “That’s a hard thing to figure out. Everyone knows he’s the best punter in the draft, and when is he going to go, and you always want to take that as late as possible, so you feel the same way going in the fourth. You’d love to do it in the seventh, but I promise you we wouldn’t have gotten him if we tried to do it in the fifth. That’s why the Patriots traded up to take next guy in the fifth.”

Lynch said the team loved what Wishnowsky brought to the table, and easily led the field as the prospect they wanted.

“[W]e really liked him. We felt like with all due respect to the other punters, [New England Patriots P] Jake Bailey is a kid right up the road who went to New England, who we thought highly of, but we thought Mitch Wishnowsky was a big-time prospect. I think [head coach] Kyle and I studied punters more this year than I think we ever will, and hopefully he’s the long-term answer. We’re talking like a 10-year guy. He checks all the boxes in terms of what you want from a punter. He has a huge leg. Inside the plus 50, he’s very adept at pinning people back. [Special teams coordinator Richard] Hightower tells us he’s got all the clubs that you need in the bag. He’s got different styles, which is kind of a new thing in punting. He can hit it with different spins, and so we just felt like a very good prospect at that position. You know, we had, we felt like had we not taken him there, he would have been taken, and so we moved back a little, gained some picks, and then took the pick, and we feel really good about it.”

This raises another question. Is the punter position sufficiently valuable enough that you need to invest a fourth round pick in the best player if you think he is that much better. He has gotten some comps Seattle Seahawks All Pro punter Michael Dickson. If Wishnowsky proved to be as good as Dickson, is he worth the pick? Or is the drop-off to Bailey or another worth spending that fourth on another need?

A great punter is valuable in flipping field position, but fourth round value? The 49ers were 18th in total points, and if the offense improves, they very well could slide further down the list. Fewer points ideally further decreases that value.

You know I love a great punter as much as anybody, but I won’t pretend spending high picks on a punter is not a bit of a head scratcher. And when you add in the context of the 49ers history the past two years, it raises questions. Oscar Aparicio offered a solid take on overpaying.

The 49ers decision to draft a punter in the fourth round is not exactly an outlier in their decision-making. They’ve spent big on positions that traditionally are not invested as such. You can make individual arguments for each decision, but until the team actually starts winning some football games, the totality of the decisions will keep us scratching our heads in the short term.

This could pan out where the 49ers have one of the best punters in the league for the next decade — and I’d love to see that. But it is reasonable to raise questions about the decision-making process.