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Why the 49ers Special Teams are So Bad

It would be a real shame if special teams were to ruin the 49ers' season.
Grant Cohn|
Why the 49ers Special Teams are So Bad
Why the 49ers Special Teams are So Bad

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers have one of the most talented teams in the NFL.

They arguably have five of the 30 best players -- Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, Trent Williams, Fred Warner and Nick Bosa. They're strong on offense and defense. But they're special teams are so bad, they occasionally have cost the 49ers games this season.

Just how bad are the 49ers special teams?

They have three kick returners who have fumbled: JaMycal Hasty, Travis Benjamin and Trenton Cannon.

They have one punt returner, Brandon Aiyuk, who hesitates and then runs sideways. His signature move is to signal for a fair catch, let the ball bounce, pick it up anyway, stand still and then run out of bounds.

They have a punt coverage unit that gave up a touchdown on a fake punt two weeks ago in Seattle.

They have a kickoff coverage unit that routinely gives up returns past the 30-yard line.

They have a kickoff specialist, Mitch Wishnowsky, who struggles to kick the ball into the end zone. Which means he isn't really a specialist -- he's a liability.

They have a punter -- also Wishnowsky -- who had a 39-yard punt against the Falcons and a 29-yard punt the week before against the Bengals.

They have a highly-paid kicker, Robbie Gould, who has missed 7 of his past 12 kicks from more than 50 yards away, plus he missed a potential game-winning 48-yard field goal last week in Cincinnati.

And to top it all off, the 49ers have a special teams coordinator, Richard Hightower, who seems to have no ability to fix anything.

It would be a real shame if special teams were to ruin the 49ers' season. Special teams aren't supposed to matter.

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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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