If you thought we were going to go through this recap of the San Francisco 49ers preseason victory over the Dallas Cowboys without talking about Mitch Wishnowsky, you don’t know how we do things in Punterville.
So yes, we got to see the punter and the punter was glorious. Wishnowski is in the top-5 of impressive rookies Saturday and that’s not an overstatement.
For starters, he was averaging 50.6 yards per punt at one point. According to our own Rob Lowder that would have led the NFL in 2018. He had a boot that went 64 yards. No, I double and triple checked that number, 64 yards.
His numbers did take a dip towards the end of the night. Matt Maiocco got the breakdown of six punts, 42.0 net, one touchback and three punts inside the 20.
Who here is getting just a bit hot hearing all those punter numbers? Pro Football Focus’ Jeff Deeney gave him a 68.3 punting grade last night which would have been fourth in the league. Not too shabby for a rookie.
As far as kickoffs, well, Wishnowsky wasn’t as lights out. One of them got flagged for going out of bounds. The other three of his four kickoffs didn’t make it past the 30-yard line when returned. So nothing horrible, but not as good of eye candy as his punts.
The naysayers kept saying we needed Wishnowsky in pads and having opposing teams coming for him. Well, you got just that last night and he still booted balls across the field. Again, 64-yard punt.
Punterville’s population is growing.