Why Mason Crosby believes 49ers will have kicker Jake Moody on ‘short leash'
NFL kickers always are under a microscope, and few people know that better than 17-year veteran Mason Crosby.
With 49ers kicker Jake Moody in a precarious spot that sees every missed attempt sparking heated debate, what can fans expect San Francisco to do moving forward?
Crosby joined 95.7 The Game’s “Willard & Dibs” to explain why he believes Moody is on a “short leash” as he struggles to find consistency entering his third NFL season.
“I have to look at my situation whenever I came in the league, and being in a good organization, an organization that expects to win games and do all of that,” Crosby said. “[The 49ers] were able to kind of ride the wave with [Moody] early on, still found a way to win games and things, stuff like that. So I know my first four years … there were ups and downs. There were moments where I was like, ‘Gosh, this is not going great.’ But you invest a little time.
“You invest [in] sticking to the process and allowing a guy like that to develop, and then you just kind of hope it doesn’t cost you too much.
“And I do think this seemingly is an important year, especially with what the expectations are in the kicking game now, that Jake needs to have a good year if they’re going to roll with him. And I’m I would assume he’d be on a on a relatively short leash, going there. You had Greg Joseph there in camp, and decided to move on from him pretty early. So, that’s telling to me that they’re, they’re going to roll with Moody.”
Moody entered the NFL with lofty expectations after being selected by San Francisco in the third round of the 2023 draft — an abnormally high spot for a specialist to be taken.
Moody got off to a solid start as a rookie, converting 84 percent of his field-goal attempts in 2023. He also became the first kicker in NFL history to make two 50-plus yard field goals in a Super Bowl, but didn’t leave the big game without a blemish after missing a key extra-point attempt in the fourth quarter.
The 2024 season was brutal for Moody, who saw his field-goal percentage drop to 70.4 percent. The 49ers kicker also missed three games with a high ankle sprain, which absolutely could’ve factored into his significant regression from the year before.
It’s likely a mental component is contributing as well, as Crosby noted how important the cerebral aspect of kicking is and how that kind of pressure impacts players at the position.
“Oh gosh, it’s all of it. It’s going out there and being able to have freedom in those moments,” Crosby explained. So I think the mental side is in all that preparation, getting your mind right for what each one of those moments is going to look like, feel like, and that comes with experiencing the good and the bad moments. I do think teams, at times, are a little too knee jerk on moving on from somebody.
“And you see that historically with with teams that have four or five kickers a season, and they’ve had eight guys in the last four years, or something like that, just because they don’t let guys develop like they do with other positions sometimes. So that’s some philosophy, but, yeah, I think it’s experience. I think it’s the preparation on a daily basis of getting your mind and then preparing your body to go out there and just be free in those moments.”
While Moody might be on thin ice, he appears to be the guy for the 49ers entering Week 1. Hopefully a strong performance can set the tone for an improved season that gets the third-year kicker back on track.
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Why Mason Crosby believes 49ers will have kicker Jake Moody on ‘short leash'
