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Nick Wagoner
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — With four games scheduled in the next 23 days, the San Francisco 49ers placed tight end George Kittle on injured reserve with a hamstring injury Tuesday.
Kittle, who sustained the injury in the first half of Sunday’s victory against the Seattle Seahawkswill miss games at New Orleanshome against Arizona and Jacksonville and at the Los Angeles Rams. The last of those games is set for “Thursday Night Football,” which made the decision to place Kittle on IR a bit more academic.
Under league guidelines for players returning from injured reserve, the earliest Kittle could return would be for the Oct. 12 game at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Coming off a Thursday night game against the Rams, Kittle would also have some additional time to rest and recover.
Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said Monday that a stay on IR for Kittle was under consideration.
“When they tell me a few weeks, it’s always a possibility,” Shanahan said. “In order to do that, it’s got to be a four-week injury.”
The Niners got better news on wide receiver Jauan Jennings. Scans of his ailing left shoulder came back clean, indicating Jennings avoided any significant injury, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Jennings now will be considered day-to-day and has a chance to play next Sunday at New Orleans after leaving the win over Seattle in the fourth quarter with the injury. San Francisco announced Tuesday it had signed wide receiver Kendrick Bourne. The two sides agreed to a one-year deal worth up to $5 million on Monday.
The Niners also made a change at kicker, waiving Jake Moody on Tuesday. The decision comes after Moody missed a 27-yard field goal and had a 36-yard attempt blocked against Seattle. The 49ers are signing veteran kicker Eddy Pineiro to their active roster on a one-year deal, his agents Drew Rosenhaus and Robert Bailey told Schefter. Pineiro worked out for the team Tuesday.
Shanahan had hinted Monday that a move with Moody could be in the offing.
“There’s options, just whether it’s stay the status quo, bringing in guys for workouts, practice squad, but we’re going through all that stuff right now,” Shanahan said. “I know the personnel department is going to look into all that stuff and give us those options.”
With Kittle out, the 49ers have two tight ends — Luke Farrell and Jake Tonges — on the roster and could use fullback Kyle Juszczyk at tight end a bit more. Juszczyk has been taking part in tight end meetings for most of training camp and the preseason.
The Niners also have Brayden Willis on the practice squad. He is an option to be elevated with Kittle out with Shanahan saying the Niners “wouldn’t hesitate” to bring him up if needed.
Kittle left Sunday’s game with 10:06 left in the second quarter with the hamstring injury after running a route deep down Seattle’s sideline on a play that ended with Seahawks safety Julian Love sacking quarterback Brock Purdy. Kittle slowly hobbled back to the Niners’ sideline and was soon ruled out after making four catches for 25 yards and a touchdown to open the game.
The Niners selected Moody in the third round (No. 99 overall) in the 2023 draft. At the time, the Niners hoped they had found a long-term replacement for accomplished kicker Robbie Gould.
But Moody’s tenure in San Francisco was rocky at best. He made 84% of his field goals and missed one of his 61 extra points as a rookie, then had a roller coaster of a performance in Super Bowl LVIII. In the narrow loss to the Kansas City ChiefsMoody briefly held the record for the longest made field goal in a Super Bowl (55 yards) and hit another 50-plus-yarder later in the game. But he also had an extra point blocked in regulation in a game the Niners lost in overtime.
After a positive start to 2024 in which he made 13 of 14 to open the season, things went south when he suffered a high right ankle sprain that kept him out until Week 10. When Moody returned, he never found any consistency, converting on 11 of his final 20 attempts. His 70.6% overall conversion rate ranked 35th in the NFL.
