Early on he had some shanks, but it looks like those are rokie mistakes
Not only did it turn out that Jake Moody didn’t need to make that kick against the Cleveland Browns, that miss was a rarity.. With one game left to go, the San Francisco 49ers rookie kicker has managed to put together a great season through 16 weeks with just one more game to go.
First the great: Jake Moody has been perfect on extra points through the year. With the 49ers’ love of finding the endzone, he’s had quite a few opportunities to shank one, but he’s made all 58.
Next is his kicks made. He’s been perfect under 40 yards. 15 kicks have been made under 40 yards, all drilled by Moody.
So let’s get to the not so good. Moody has missed three of his 24 total kicks . You know where those came from. During the 49ers’ three-game skid he had misses in two of them. Two missed in the Cleveland Browns game, and one in the Minnesota Vikings game.
After that it was smooth sailing. Moody never missed a kick since the Vikings. He was perfect both from 40+ and 50+.
A few things to remember: Moody didn’t exactly have that many field goal attempts in 2023. His 24 attempts ranks 27th in the league. That’s both good and bad. Good because it means the 49ers offense is doing its job and scoring touchdowns. Good because it puts less pressure on a rookie kicker and doesn’t screw with the mental game as he gets acquainted to the NFL. Last thing anyone needs is multiple shanks to derail the career.
Bad because it obviously doesn’t give him many situations to get that leg of his going. Seattle Seahawks kicker Jason Myers leads the league in attempts with 40. While he has a lower success percentage than Moody, he also has just under double the workload.
Moody’s field goal percentage is 87.5 combining that with his attempts puts him somewhere middle of the road.
Despite that, for a rookie with only two bad games, Moody has been slowly carving out a reliable role with the 49ers. The Browns game is really the only game you can point at him and say his misses were a factor. That wasn’t the reason the 49ers lost, but they could have held on and ran off with a win had he made that kick. Thankfully, that didn’t derail their No. 1 seeding chances as they managed to lock up their first round bye before the final week of the regular season.
I know a lot of people on this site are dreading the situation where he might be called to make a kick in the postseason. My response is, he’s going to have to sooner or later. I’d prefer it later, myself. Regardless of that, err, thought, Moody has put together a decent season. It’s not going to shatter record books like some would want, but it’s at least not a kicker that will find his way out of the league in one season.
Hopefully Moody can keep getting better. What are your thoughts on Moody’s season?
About the Author: Insidethe49
