Patriots, 49ers pay steep price for special teams lesson not learned

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

That clearly is not a theory the 49ers and Patriots adhered to entering this season with respect to their incumbent kickers. And six games into 2023, it’s already costing both of them.

Why the 49ers parted ways with dependable and playoff-seasoned Robbie Gould, opting not to re-sign him for 2023, is one of the great GM decision-making mysteries of the offseason.

And why the Patriots, who employed three kickers in 26 years, traded Nick Folk to the Titans during training camp after he made 89 percent of his field-goal attempts in his four seasons at New England, reeks of organizational arrogance, believing it can plug anyone in and trust him.

The Patriots replaced Folk with rookie draft pick Chad Ryland, who has missed four of his nine field-goal attempts through six games. There were reports out of New England that the Patriots were looking for a younger kicker with a bigger leg. Folk is not strong from 50-plus yards and is not a good kickoff man.

But that, at the moment, doesn’t look like a very sound succession plan after the remarkable run of kickers the Patriots have had since Adam Vinatieri kicked for them from 1996 to 2005, followed by Stephen Gostkowski, who was automatic for them from 2006 through 2018, and then Folk.

The 49ers’ plight is even worse, because, unlike New England (1-5), they’re one of the best teams in the NFL, at 5-1, and figure to be fighting for the top playoff seed in the NFC and home-field advantage throughout.

Yet they handed the Browns a win last Sunday when Jake Moody, a third-round draft pick and the replacement for Gould, missed two field goals — the second one a 41-yard potential game-winner as time expired that sailed wide right. If Moody had made that kick, the 49ers would be the only undefeated team in the NFL right now.

Why would the 49ers, a championship-ready team, not keep a kicker like Gould, whose postseason record is unmatched and beyond reproach — 29-for-29 on field goals and 39-for-39 on extra points?

If Moody continues to struggle, that is a question San Francisco GM John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan must answer.

Sure, Gould carried a $5.5 million cap number in 2022, which is high for a kicker. But the 49ers are not in salary cap trouble, not with their starting quarterback Brock Purdy, the last pick in the 2022 draft, making Uber driver money.

So, there’s no financial excuse here.

Maybe Moody will work out eventually. Maybe he will shake off the loss from last Sunday and become the kind of kicker the 49ers expected when they drafted him. But if he doesn’t, then Lynch and Shanahan have done a disservice to every other player on their roster who is ready to win a championship now.

“When you have a proven guy, you don’t want to give away a proven guy,’’ Giants special teams coach Thomas McGaughey said this week. “I tell people this all the time, ‘Once you get on the kicker train, the destination is unknown. So, when you’re on that train that’s been steady and you know the destination, you know exactly where you’re going, you like to ride on that train.’

“But when you get one you really don’t know, you think you know but you really don’t know until you know, you could be anywhere. You can look up and you could be halfway across the world before you find another one. That kicker train is dangerous. It can take you anywhere.’’

The moral to this story is simple: Don’t mess with a dependable, consistent, clutch kicker who’s already on your roster.

The Jets did that when they got short arms and deep pockets and didn’t want to give Folk the modest raise he asked for after the 2016 season. All Folk had done was make 175 of 213 field goals and 204 of 206 PATs from 2010-16, but the Jets arrogantly didn’t want to allocate more than minimal money to a kicker despite how good he’d been for them, so they let him walk.

The Jets are on their 10th kicker since 2018, Greg Zeurlein, who has been terrific the past two seasons. Lo and behold, they re-signed Zuerlein this offseason for 2023 after his strong 2022.

It seems they finally learned a lesson the 49ers and Patriots have yet to learn.