The San Francisco 49ers have plenty to fix after Sunday’s 29-20 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, but Eddy Piñeiro’s performance gave head coach Kyle Shanahan something else to think about on the plane ride home.
A normally reliable placekicker, Pineiro has been shaky at best this year.
He was already on thin ice heading into Sunday’s game, and the extra point he missed in the fourth quarter against the Falcons didn’t help Pineiro’s case.
While the missed PAT didn’t have any bearing on the final score, it did prompt head coach Kyle Shanahan to admit he’s considering making a change with his kicker.
Kyle Shanahan Addresses Pineiro’s Future
During his postgame press conference, Shanahan was asked if the 49ers will work out any new kickers this week.
His response didn’t give Pineiro any reassurance.
“I don’t know — I haven’t talked to anybody about that, we’ll probably discuss on the plane,” Shanahan told reporters.
While that’s not a commitment to move on from Piñeiro, it is, however, a sign the 49ers expect to talk through making a change at a position that has become increasingly hard to ignore.
And this comes on the heels of the warning Shanahan gave Pineiro after Week 6 when he cryptically told his struggling kicker that he needed to make his kicks in an “or else” tone.
“He’s got to make them,” Shanahan said. “You’ve got to make your extra points.”
Sunday’s miss was Piñeiro’s seventh missed kick of the season (four extra points, three field goals). The extra-point trouble has been especially persistent. He missed two in San Francisco’s Week 3 win over Arizona and another in the team’s 23-17 victory over Washington before Sunday’s miss against Atlanta.
A season ago, Piñeiro appeared to give the 49ers stability at a position that had caused problems. He missed only one field goal and four extra points across 14 games, and San Francisco signed him to a four-year, $17 million extension in March 2026, with $10 million guaranteed.
The contrast is hard to overlook — Pineiro, who looked like a solution last season, is now missing often enough that the coach has to address whether the team might seek another option.
A Kicking Change Could Come With a Cost
The 49ers likely are thinking long and hard about making a move, but releasing Piñeiro would carry a financial consequence.
According to Over The Cap, immediately cutting the 31-year-old would result in a dead-cap charge of almost $6 million, which would cut the team’s available cap space by nearly $4 million.
Though San Francisco has more than $42 million in cap space, absorbing a $6 million blow is a lot to swallow for a kicker.
The 49ers now have their bye week to discuss the situation before hosting the Las Vegas Raiders on Nov. 8. After seven missed kicks, the conversation Shanahan said he would have on the plane is no longer an abstract one.
Kyle Shanahan Addresses Eddy Pineiro’s 49ers Future After 7th Missed Kick