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The 49ers are Releasing Long Snapper Taybor Pepper

This is weird.
Grant Cohn|
Dec 17, 2023; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers long snapper Taybor Pepper (46) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Dec 17, 2023; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers long snapper Taybor Pepper (46) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

This is weird.

The 49ers are releasing veteran long snapper Taybor Pepper according to NBC Sports Bay Area's Jennifer Lee Chan. This release comes out of the blue. Pepper had a year remaining on his contract and never seemed to have any issues snapping the ball.

To replace Pepper, who's 30, the 49ers have signed 39-year-old former Houston Texans long snapper Jon Weeks to a one-year, $1.422 million contract according to Aaron Wilson. Bizarre.

Keep in mind, the 49ers recently fired their special team coach, Brian Schneider, and hired Brant Boyer to replace him. Perhaps Boyer prefers Weeks to Pepper, although it's strange to choose a 39-year-old over a 30-year-old.

It's also worth mentioning that Pepper got in an altercation on the sideline during a game last season with Deebo Samuel, who recently got traded to the Washington Commanders. Samuel yelled at kicker Jake Moody after he missed a field goal, Pepper yelled at Samuel in defense of Moody and Samuel put his hand on Pepper's throat. Now both are off the team. Coincidence?

In all likelihood, this move won't affect the 49ers. Weeks is a good long snapper who is a former Pro Bowler and was the Texans' longest-tenured player. Their head coach, DeMeco Ryans, probably recommended him to Kyle Shanahan.

But if Weeks struggles at all next season, we'll have to ask why the 49ers replaced a perfectly good 30-year-old long snapper with one who's near the end of his career.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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