49ers forced to speed up position battle amid rash of injuries

Per 49ers Webzone, San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan claimed he wanted to keep Joseph around longer, but injuries forced him to release a kicker.

"More just the roster numbers," Shanahan said. "I would have loved to keep him longer, allow them to play that out longer, but just we had 13 guys out of practice today. We've got five guys on PUP (the physically unable to perform list). It's just too many people (out) to have that luxury.

"It's awesome to have two kickers, allow them to battle, but they're not guys who really take reps. We need more people to take reps for us."

The 49ers needed to have a serious competition at kicker after Moody struggled on field goal attempts last season. The 2023 third-round pick only made 24-of-34 field goal tries.

Shanahan initially brought in Carter Bradley to compete with Mordecai but chose to release Mordecai because of injuries to players like defensive linemen Kevin Givens (pec) and Tarron Jackson (neck).

"Really, we brought (Bradley) in (for a workout), not thinking we'd make a move that day, but he did so well in our workout that we went back and watched his 38 passes that he had in the preseason last year, and we wanted to get him in here so he could compete with Tanner," Shanahan said.

"Then, after some of the things that happened in practice — last practice — losing a number of D-linemen, we just couldn't have the luxury to have the two of them, especially with (rookie QB Kurtis) Rourke being on PUP too, because he's got a count."

Shanahan thinks there's a possibility Mordecai could return later in the preseason.

The battle between Mordecai and Bradley isn't too significant in training camp. However, the release of Joseph could affect the season. The veteran kicker has a field goal make percentage of 82.3, higher than Moody's career average of 76.3%. 

San Francisco is banking that their healthy Day 2 kicker will perform better this season, as Moody had to deal with a high-ankle sprain in 2024.