It seemed like the San Francisco 49ers solved their kicker problem last season when they finally moved on from Jake Moody and replaced him with Eddy Piñeiro. While Piñeiro was money last season, hence the "dinero" nickname, he has had a shaky start to the 2026 campaign.
He had already missed five kicks so far this season, which as Josh Dubow of the AP pointed out on social media, equals the number of kicks he missed last season. Piñeiro has missed three field goals, all of which were longer than 50 yards. Last season, he made six out of seven kicks from beyond 50 yards, and his one miss hit the crossbar.
Piñeiro led the NFL with a 96.6 make percentage on field goals last season, and so far this season, he has only made 62.5 percent of his attempts.
That is troubling, but so is the fact he has struggled to make extra points.
Eddy Piñeiro's misses are swiftly becoming a 49ers concern
Last season, Piñeiro missed four extra points, and for whatever reason, he has struggled to make extra points throughout his career. His two extra-point misses in Week 3 against the Denver Broncos made that game much closer than it needed to be. Across his seven NFL seasons, he has made 91.3 percent of his extra-point tries and 88.3 percent of his field-goal attempts, which is pretty remarkable.
Now, to be fair to Piñeiro, when everything was on the line on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks, he drilled a 43-yard attempt to give San Francisco a 32-29 lead, which ended up being enough to secure the victory. He's proven to be clutch and makes kicks when they matter, but the Niners are going to need a little more consistency.
It's totally possible Piñeiro makes his next 10 field goals and is perfect on his extra-point attempts, and it feels silly we worried about him at all.
But if this lingers as a narrative and he continues to miss kicks, then the 49ers may start to get a little worried.
Things would have to get awfully bad before the Niners pull the plug on Piñeiro, though. They signed him to a four-year, $17 million contract in the offseason, $10 million of that guaranteed. He'd have to reach Moody levels of incompetence before San Francisco seriously considered a change.
Still, Piñeiro's early struggles are something to keep an eye on.
His misses have yet to cost the Niners a game so far as they are 5-0, but for those who remember the last time the 49ers were 5-0, a missed last-second kick from Moody against the Cleveland Browns prevented San Francisco from starting 6-0.
So if Piñeiro has a similar game-costing miss, then there might be a real discussion about what's going on.
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