49ers 2021 ‘Who is?’ series: Robbie Gould trending downward?

The 49ers won’t be rid of Robbie Gould and his contract anytime soon, but the stat trends aren’t exactly looking in his favor entering 2021.

Few positions in the NFL allow for players to reach into their late 30s, but one exception could be the kicking specialists.

That’s at least what the San Francisco 49ers are hoping for with their kicker, Robbie Gould, who’ll be around for the next two years after renegotiating his contract and staying through the 2022 season.

Entering his fifth year with the Niners, Gould appears to have shaken off the woes he endured during an otherwise stellar 2019 campaign for the team in which he posted a career-low 74.2 field-goal percentage. Part of the reason there, no doubt, was an ever-changing cast of battery mates on field-goal and extra-point tries.

Yet aside from a small change at long-snapper early last season, the battery consisting of Gould, punter/holder Mitch Wishnowsky and long-snapper Taybor Pepper remained almost entirely consistent after Week 3.

Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com
Generated 6/18/2021.

Still, there was only a slight increase from the 2019 field-goal percentage to the 82.6 percentage posted a year ago.

So, is Gould on the decline?

It’s hard to say, but Niner Noise’s “Who is?” series takes a deeper look while taking into account some of last season’s gaffes.

Why Robbie Gould improves with 49ers in 2021

Gould missed four field goals in 2020, including two inexplicable misses in Week 16 against the Arizona Cardinals and an extra-point miss.

Let’s assume those misses were outliers for a moment. And we can blame another one of Gould’s misses on former long-snapper Kyle Nelson’s awful Week 3 game against the New York Giants, which subsequently resulted in his release days later.

Had that field-goal try in Week 3 been made, Gould’s percentage would have jumped to 87.0 percent, which would have been much more consistent with his 86.6-percent career average.

While he might never get close to that league-leading 97.1 percent from 2018, Gould should at least benefit from some additional consistency heading into 2021.

Why Robbie Gould is on the decline with 49ers in 2021

It would be one thing if Gould’s misses last year had more to do with the battery inconsistencies, which was easily the blame point for most of 2019 and early in 2020.

But that Week 16 game last year is a potential concern, and given Gould was out in Week 17 while on the reserve/COVID-19 list, it’s the last contest seen and one that ultimately didn’t discourage San Francisco from picking up Gould’s option years for 2021 and 2022.

Turning 39 years old towards the end of this season, it’s not going to be likely Gould finds some sort of upswing. Particularly when asked to make kicks of 50-plus yards.

Projected outlook for 2021 and beyond

Great for Gould, but the 49ers should never have offered him a four-year, $19 million contract ahead of the 2019 season.

That’s another one of those overpayments for a specialist.

Gould will command $2.6 million this season, and a negative cap savings of $5.5 million means he’s not going anywhere this season. With another $5.5 million in dead money in 2022, he’s not going anywhere next year either.

If there’s a good side to all of this, though, the Niners don’t need to worry about a black hole at the position unless Gould suffers some sort of injury or regresses wildly early on.

Yet there’s still the sizable risk Gould begins to trend downward this upcoming season, perhaps losing some of the strength and accuracy that were already shaky enough the last two years.

Should that be the case, San Francisco will again be forced to wish it hadn’t signed Gould to that extension and reworked the deal to include over $5 million in guaranteed money over the next two seasons.