Niners Nation
The 49ers have been among the worst special teams units dating back to 2020. Why is that?
The San Francisco 49ers would be recognized as one of the best teams in the NFL if their special teams units were merely average.
We’re ready to pull the plug on the Jake Moody experiment. The punting hasn’t been much better, but the Niners' offense made us forget about that unit in Week 10. And it’s not as if you can say they haven’t invested in a kicker or a punter. San Francisco used a third—and fourth-round draft pick on those positions. If anything, they went too far in the other direction.
But that wasn’t the first game, and this hasn’t been the first season the third phase of the game has been underwhelming under Kyle Shanahan.
The graph above is...alarming. There’s an argument to be made here that special teams don’t have as strong of a correlation to winning as the other two phases in the game, but you’d have to turn a blind eye to what we’ve seen from the 49ers in 2024.
The points lost in the Vikings—Rams game were the difference in the game. San Francisco beat New England and Tampa Bay despite porous special teams play.
According to DVOA, which adjusts for opponents, the 49ers rank 31st in special teams. They are in the bottom 11 of every unit — and the bottom two in some. San Francisco effectively loses a field goal every game this season due to its special teams.
If we use EPA, only the Atlanta Falcons have lost more points this season. Again, the past five years have been consistent, with 2022 being the outlier. This year, the Niners have lost north of four touchdowns due to special teams.
It hasn’t been for a lack of trying or cycling through players.
Take the Arizona Cardinals game earlier this season as an example. An undrafted free agent called up from the practice squad had to play due to multiple injuries at safety. He was in a position to make a tackle on kickoff and missed. That player had no business being on the field, to begin with, but attrition cost the Niners then and has all season.
That’s where injuries hurt you the most: on special teams. So, it’s no surprise that a team that’s been hit as hard, if not more than any team in adjusted games, lost due to injury during Shanahan’s tenure and struggles on special teams.
