The San Francisco 49ers have a replacement for recently-waived kicker Jake Moody.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Tuesday reported veteran Eddy Pineiro had a visit with the 49ers that resulted in the 29-year-old signing a one-year deal to join San Francisco’s active roster. There won’t be a corresponding roster move since San Francisco has one spot open after waiving Moody, placing tight end George Kittle on IR and signing wide receiver Kendrick Bourne on Tuesday.
Pineiro made his NFL debut with the Chicago Bears in 2019 where he connected on 23 of his 28 field goal attempts in what would be the worst season of his career. After missing the entire 2020 season, Pineiro returned to play five games with the New York Jets in 2021 where he drilled all eight of his kicks. In 2022 he signed with the Carolina Panthers where he spent the next three years of his career, making 80-of-90 field goals and 80-of-87 extra points.
His 88.1 percent career FG% is the fourth-best mark in NFL history behind former Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, and Pittsburgh Steelers kicker Chris Boswell.
The goal for the 49ers will be to simply not worry about whether their kicker is going to consistently make his kicks. That became a problem with Moody last season and it bled into the 2025 campaign.
Having a more consistent option at kicker changes the way head coach Kyle Shanahan can call plays and gives San Francisco some more stability on a special teams unit that has struggled in recent seasons.
Pineiro has never missed from inside of 30 yards where he’s 26-for-26 in his career. Since missing five kicks from inside of 50 yards as a rookie, he’s missed just seven times from that distance in 86 tries since. For comparison, Moody has missed 10 such kicks in 50 career tries.
The 49ers will have Pineiro on the practice field Wednesday, and he’ll be their kicker Sunday when they kick off against the New Orleans Saints.
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