Punterville State of the Punter: Welcome to Kickertown

Mayor of Punterville here.

Citizens! I gotta be honest with all of you, it’s not looking like Robbie Gould is coming back to the San Francisco 49ers. I also got to be honest, you were wrong if you thought you were done with me as the mayor of this fair city. After you put me in into the basement of Punterville City Hall at the start of 2020 with a copy of the original NES version of Battletoads, I knew something was up. You said I could come out if I beat it thinking I’d never do it.

What you didn’t know was you left a Game Genie in the basement too. It took me three long years, but with the aid of a cheat device, I have finished Battletoads, ran out of tortilla shells to eat and emerged from my bunker to see the status of my city.

And...it’s a metropolis now? I see our hero, Mitch Wishnowsky is winning games. So much has happened to this fair city, but I see over the skyline, further past where Bed Bath and Beyond once was, a suburb, a sister city?

I see Kickertown. It is glorious! With their hero Jake Moody, they will join us in great commerce. I mean, we may never speak of them again until Moody makes NFL field goals, but it. is. THERE! And until Moody makes himself a bust, we will extend our punter privilege and punter plantations and help them build a city. It might be like Sim City where they build five football fields and 20 airports as a joke, but they will build a city joining us in arms.

Why is Moody so important? Well, a third-round draft pick certainly speaks importance for kickers. But it’s not just the 49ers looking at Moody, other teams were looking to trade up in front of the 49ers to get that powerful leg. On the recent Murph and Mac Podcast, 49ers general manager John Lynch broke it down:

“We did all our due diligence with the draft and trade options and where we arrived at is that Jake Moody was what we thought number 1 target out there. We tried to be stealth. There were a lot of kicker-needy teams this year, probably more so than the other years that I’ve been involved with—a lot of teams needed a kicker. There were two or three that viable options in the draft, there were a couple available via trade. But again, we kept coming back to Jake Moody and his talent and then his make up, his mental makeup which is very important at that position that was a guy that we were most interested in.

Then you start saying, “Ok, Where can we get this guy? Where do we need to get this guy?” We call it a 3rd round pick, really a comp 3, which we kind of see as 4th round picks. We felt like that was a really good value. We had three of them there, I think that gave us a little luxury there to come away with two players that we coveted at positions offense and defense. Then to be able to add a kicker, that was a luxury we had that maybe everybody else didn’t have. I can also tell you since then, a lot teams have called and said shortly thereafter they were going there. And in fact teams tried to trade up to get in front of us. Something we feel really good about, time will tell, as it does with all these guys. But we think he has the makings of a cornerstone/foundational type of player for years to come for us.”

We can also point to Michigan fans and their love of Jake Moody. Kickertown may have a bright future.

So about Punterville’s status? Our hero Mitch Wishnowsky continues to cause muffs and chaos wherever he goes. I apologize to you citizens for not being here when he was special teams player of the month during the 2022 season but accolades such as that only prove awesomeness.

I’m not the only one who thinks he’s a great punter. Look to the Pat McAfee show where they also see Punterville’s hero in full glory. That game was the Punter showcase. And while the 49ers may have lost that game, Mitch Wishnowsky will always win the respect of Punterville.

With all that said, the building of Kickertown and the status of Punterville, I ask to see what you think of this fair city.