We have Punterville down over yonder, but that’s for elite punters. We have elite kickers too, and that is here in Kickertown. Welcome to The Kicker Konnection. I felt like calling this Kicker Kombat, but there is no Kombat...not when you’re Jake Moody. While we see both good and bad in his limited sample size, we know the dude at least has leg strength.
Ok, so let’s get the bad out of the way: He’s a rookie and it’s definitely showed during San Francisco 49ers OTAs and minicamp. A day in minicamp was particularly strange where he made a 33-yarder, and three 43-yarders, but he missed a 38-yarder wide left. Oh and one of those 43-yarders was ugly enough that Matt Maiocco wonders how it didn’t get blocked.
He had some ugly shanks, but he also had a 63-yarder he drilled. In case you’re curious, that was an NFL record at one point. A record a former 49ers kicker known as David Akers shared after he drilled one at that distance in Lambeau Field (the other 63-yarders were at Mile High Stadium where the altitude really helps).
The 49ers don’t mess around with their kickers. Most of the time.
If we want to go back further, there’s this number from May 31 where Moody was 4-4 on kicks. Meanwhile competing kicker Zane Gonzalez was 3-4 that same day. Oh and the tweet linked above mentions that Moody’s 40-yard drilled travelled at least 60 yards in the air.
So what does all this mean? Well, nothing. If you wanted to follow or look for any “trend,” I’d say look at the career trajectory of Roberto Aguayo who was drafted in the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft. Aguayo had the name “The Golden Leg”, though the “gold” in his name may have been mistaken for iron pyrite. While there isn’t a “comparison” it’s a kicker that has a lot of hype like Moody and might be able for us to overanalyze something.
I tried looking at Buccaneers training camps to see how Aguayo did as a rookie to see if Moody is following any sort of trend. Aguayo was pretty hit or miss his rookie training camp (had some nice boots in preseason games too), but then came out swinging for his first game. After that it was all downhill and Aguayo is pretty much out of the league at this point.
It’s too hard with the hit or miss and early stats to really see if Moody will go the way of Aguayo, so I’m not even going to try.
Instead, I’m just going to leave this quote he had on KNBR’s Papa & Lund to maybe illustrate the kid’s mental game and let you guys take it away:
“I’m not trying, to necessarily, to be better than Robbie [Gould] or live up to any kind of expectations. I’m just trying to do what I’ve been doing. And not change anything. I think that’s where guys can get in trouble is if they’re thinking too much about certain pressure or expectations.”
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