As Brock Purdy made shockwaves, the 49ers created a competition at kicker

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On Friday afternoon, as the 49ers and Brock Purdy agreed to what will be the largest contract in franchise history and a deal that will provide the biggest raise in NFL history, another piece of news managed to fly completely under the radar.

The 49ers signed veteran kicker Greg Joseph to compete with Jake Moody.

News came courtesy of Joseph’s agent, Brett Tessler, who pointed out that Joseph booted two game-winning field goals while with the Minnesota Vikings in 2023. One of those was an absolute bomb from 61 yards out — an indication that the 30-year-old Joseph has the talent to truly push the 25-year-old Moody for the starting job.

“As long as we bring in a guy who is capable of taking that job, and Jake respects him — that’s what puts pressure on him, because you’ve got to respect the guy you’re going against,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said last month.

Publicly, the 49ers have voiced their confidence in Moody, who made only 11-of-20 field goals last season after returning from a high ankle sprain. He’d drilled 13-of-14 kicks before suffering that October injury. The 49ers firmly believe that Moody’s struggles were injury-related and are hopeful that health and offseason competition straightens the former third-round pick out.

“There isn’t a special teams coach in this league that didn’t have him rated No. 1 coming out [of college] that I know of,” new 49ers special teams coordinator Brant Boyer said of Moody earlier this month. “He’s as talented of a kid as it gets. … If he gets his mind right — which I think he’s doing, he’s doing a hell of a job for us so far — I think he’ll do a heck of a job for us, I really do.”

Boyer, who coached Joseph for a game with the New York Jets last season, also said that the 49ers’ change at long snapper should help Moody. The team released Taybor Pepper in March and replaced him with 39-year old stalwart Jon Weeks.

Joseph has made 116-of-141 field goals over his six-year NFL career, good for a make rate of 82.3%. He’s been with six different teams. Moody made 84% of his kicks as a rookie in 2023 before his post-injury 2024 slide. The league average over the past few years has hovered around 85%.

The 49ers begin organized team activities (OTAs) this coming week, so they’ll practice in full 11-on-11 fashion for the first time this offseason. They’d wanted to add kicking competition by this point and preferred that it be a veteran. Louisiana’s Kenny Almendares, the Lou Groza Award winner (which goes to the best kicker in college football), tried out at the team’s recent rookie minicamp.

Don’t expect this competition to be resolved anytime soon. The 49ers will need actual game opportunities to make proper evaluations of Moody and Joseph, and those won’t come until the preseason begins in August.

“It all comes down to what happens in the preseason, like every other position,” Boyer said.

Purdy’s contract news generated a strong afterglow. Cornerback Deommodore Lenoir was one of many teammates who chimed in on social media.

Purdy has not yet signed the contract, but that’s lined up to happen early next week. Once that’s finalized, the 49ers and Purdy are expected to hold a press conference to help detail how this all materialized so quickly.

Full contract details should become available around that time. Those will allow us to piece together the rest of the puzzle, but initial fact-finding has already identified most nuts and bolts of this deal. Those, highlighted by a flexible structure that’s allowed the 49ers to keep Purdy’s 2025 cap hit down at just about $8.5 million, are detailed here.

The initial numbers have already produced some fun nuggets.

Here’s one: Over the first three years of his career, Purdy made $2.64 million total — or about $73,000 per regular season start. Now, (even if it’s unlikely) let’s assume that Purdy will start all 17 games over the five new years of this big contract, which is worth up to $265 million. In that scenario, he’d earn $3.1 million per start.

That’s a 4,147% pay raise, the largest in NFL history. Purdy, the very last pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, is now the highest-paid player from that year’s draft class.

It’s safe to say that Purdy’s status as pick No. 262, which had been tethered to his small rookie deal, is now officially irrelevant.