49ers GM reveals surprising reason why team drafted kicker in third round

The San Francisco 49ers made questionable use of their limited draft capital last weekend when they selected kicker Jake Moody 99th overall.

But according to 49ers general manager John Lynch, if San Francisco didn’t select Moody, another team would have selected him soon after.

Per NFL.com, during an appearance on KNBR’s “Murph & Mac,” Lynch said, “A lot of teams have called and said … they were going there. And in fact, teams tried to trade up to get in front of us.”

As curious as San Francisco’s decision might be, Lynch’s claim that other NFL franchises were considering trading up to select Moody might be even more stunning.

While he was fantastic at Michigan — he’s the all-time scoring leader in program history — spending a top-100 pick on a kicker is questionable at best.

Per Stathead, he’s only the sixth kicker selected within the top 100 since 2000 and the first since Roberto Aguayo was drafted in the second round (59th overall) in 2016 after a brilliant career at Florida State.

Moody was 148-of-148 on extra points in his career at Michigan and made 82.1 percent of his field goals (69-of-84). Aguayo was even better than that. He was 198-of-198 on his extra-point attempts and made 88.5 of his field goals (69-of-78).

Aguayo’s collegiate success didn’t translate to the NFL, and he was cut by the Bucs after his rookie season when he made only 71 percent of his field goals and missed two extra points.

Most starting NFL kickers were drafted much later than Moody — if they were drafted at all. Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, for instance, is arguably the best kicker of all time but went undrafted in 2012. Value can be found in later rounds at every position but more so on special teams than anywhere else.

That didn’t stop San Francisco from taking an unorthodox approach to the draft, but it apparently saved other teams from making the same choice.