The 49ers will be without Jake Moody for a while, so they turned to a former Super Bowl champion kicker to help fill the void.
There were plenty of negatives stemming from the San Francisco 49ers’ heartbreaking Week 5 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
One of them was watching kicker Jake Moody hobble off the field after trying to make an ill-advised tackle on a kickoff return. Not long thereafter, he was carted off to the locker room, and subsequent reports revealed he suffered a high-ankle sprain that would sideline him for a lengthy period of time.
In response, head coach Kyle Shanahan informed reporters his team would work out a number of kickers the following Monday.
After the tryouts, it appears the Niners are set with a fill-in replacement, one who just happened to win a Super Bowl not long ago.
49ers sign kicker Matthew Wright to replace injured Jake Moody
On Tuesday, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported San Francisco was signing kicker Matthew Wright to alleviate Moody’s loss:
Wright, 28 years old, has been a journeyman specialist since breaking into the league with the Pittsburgh Steelers as an undrafted free agent back in 2019.
He appeared in two games for the Kansas City Chiefs back in 2022, even setting a franchise record for the longest field goal that season while filling in for KC’s injured kicker, Harrison Butker.
Kansas City ended up winning the Super Bowl that year, of course, making Wright a Super Bowl champion even though he technically wasn’t with the team when it beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the big game.
Additionally, Wright was part of the 49ers’ practice squad in September of last year for a brief period.
Overall in his career, Wright has made 40 of 47 field-goal tries and 35 of 37 extra-point attempts.