Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today. We're we're taking
what looks like a tiny little news item on the surface, right,
you know, a kicker getting signed to a practice squad,
and we're going to use it to really blow open
this whole, frantic, high stakes world of NFL specialists.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's a perfect example, it really is. We're diving into
the reports around the San Francisco forty nine ers and
a recent injury, and you'll see how one single move
just starts this cascade.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
The total domino effect.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Exactly a chain reaction of tryouts, releases, signings, It connects
a bunch of different teams.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
So our mission for you today is to use this
one transaction to really understand the specialist market, to see
why a kicker's job is so so unstable, How one
guy's hamstring injury or another guy's miskick can just completely
reset the board. It's a world with like zero margin.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
For error, and it all starts with the catalyst, the
injury that kicked this whole thing off.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
That would be eighty Pinero, the forty nine ers kicker.
He's officially out and the reports are pretty clear this
wasn't something he could just you know play through.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh absolutely not. The sources confirm he suffered a grade
one hamstring strain. Now for anyone knows and no, a
grade one is technically the mildest kind, just a microscopic tears.
But the key detail, and this is everything, is the location.
It's in his right leg. It is kicking leg, his
kicking legs sustained in that wind against the Cardinals. So
even a mild strain is a huge deal.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Right, because his entire job is just generating maximum explosive
power from that exact spot. So what does week to
week really mean? For a kicker?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
It means uncertainty. I mean another player alignment or someone
might be able to tape it up and get through it.
But for a kicker, no chance, any hesitation, any tiny
drop in power can send the ball wide. So when
coach Kyle Shanahan says week to week, that's not really
a medical diagnosis. Its code is him saying we have
a job opening effective immediately.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And that code sends the front office scrambling. You can't
go into a Sunday without a kicker, or at least
a plan B. So that brings us to the actual mechanics.
How do they handle it.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
They made a really smart, low risk move. They need
a replacement, so they got Matt Gay. But they signed
them straight to the practice squad on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, so why the practice squad? Why not just put
them right on the main fifty three man roster. What's
the advantage there.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
It's all about risk management. Roster spots and cap space
are like gold. So by putting Gay on the practice squad,
they don't have to cut someone from the active roster
while they wait and see how Pinero's hamstring heals.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Up, so they can keep their depth maybe at BB
or receiver somewhere else exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
They keep the main roster intact. And the best part
is they can elevate Gay from the practice squad for
game day up to three.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Times without having to sign him long term.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Correct, So if Piniera is only out for a week,
maybe two, the forty nine ers have used basically zero
long term resources. It's the definition of a tribe. Before
you buy.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's amazing how one little muscle strain sets this whole
organizational machine into motion. And it wasn't just a single
phone call to Matt Gay, was it. The report said
this was an intense couple of day process.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh is a frenzy, a tryout frenzy. They knew the
clock was ticking, so they brought in a bunch of guys.
They want to see the legs in person.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So who was on that list? Who did they actually
bring in to compete for this temporary job.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Let's see they worked at Andrews Carlson, John Parker, Romo
Tanner Brown and Cade York. Wow. Yeah, that's a deep
list of available specialists, which again just shows you how
many guys are out there waiting for a call. They
basically had them kick for two days in an empty
stadium and picked the one who looked best.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And the winner of that kicking gauntlet was the veteran
Matt Gay. But like you said, even a practice squad
spot isn't free. Someone has to go.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Right, the practice squad has what sixteen spots, So to
make room for Gay, they had to release wide receiver
Russell Gage Junior.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Okay, let's pause on that for a second, because Russell
Gage is not some unknown rookie. He's a legit NFL
receiver who's had starting reps. He is, and they cut
him a potential off offensive weapon to make room for
a kicker who might only play one game. What does
that tell you about the priority of the specialist position.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It tells you that the risk of not having a
reliable kicker for even one Sunday is seen as greater
than the benefit of having extra depth at receiver. It's
that simple. Gage was a nice to have for the future,
Gay is a must have for right now.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
That makes perfect sense. So let's shift to Matt Gay himself.
We said he's a veteran over one hundred career games,
which begs the question, why was a guy with that
resume available for a practice squad job in the middle
of the season.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, that's the whole story right there. That's the volatility
we're talking about. He had just been released by his
previous team, the Washington Commanders, just a few days earlier,
and not.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
For an injury. This was a performance thing.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
One one hundred percent performance. The report said his release
was because of continued struggles, and it all came to ahead.
In his last game, he missed two field goals in
an overtime loss to the Dolphins. Ouch in the NFL,
for a ca your entire career resume can be erased
by one or two bad kicks in a big moment.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So let's look at the numbers. With Washington, he was
thirteen of nineteen on field goals in ten games. That's
what sixty eight point four percent.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That is just not gonna cut it. It's unsustainable. A
team can't go into a game thinking there's a one
in three chance their kicker is going to miss. But
here's the really interesting part, the conflict in the stats. Okay,
on extra points, he was perfect twenty two for twenty two, so.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Wait, he's automatic on the short gimme kicks, but a
total liability on the longer ones that actually decide the
games exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
It's the ultimate high wire act. And so the question
for the forty nine ers becomes, are we betting on
the recent slump or are we betting on his career?
His career averages eighty four percent, which is solid.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
So they're gambling that this was just a bad stretch
in Washington and that a change of scenery will bring
back the old Matt Gay.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
That's the bet. They are betting on the career, not
the slump.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
This is fascinating. Okay, so we've got the injury, the
try out, the roster math, and Gaye's shaky recent history.
But now here's where it gets really interesting. This is
where you see just how small the NFL world really is.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
It really is the connectivity of the kicker market is
just wild. So we just established that Washington released Matt
Gay from missing.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Those kicks, right, So Washington needs a new kicker. Who
do they sign?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
They signed Jake Moody.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Jake Moody. Now that name should ring a bell for
the forty.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Nine ers, right, It absolutely should, because here's the full circle.
Washington replaces Gay with Moody. But the San Francisco forty
nine ers had released Jake Moody way back in week two.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Why they cut Moody in week two?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
They cut him to sign the guy who just got hurt,
Eddie Pinero.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Oh my gosh, let me let me walk through that again.
So the Niners cut Moody to sign Pinero. Months go by,
Pinero gets hurt. The Niners need a guy, so they
signed Gay, right, and Gay was only available because Washington
cut him to sign Moody, the same guy the Niners
started this whole chain with.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It is a perfect brutal triangle. Pinero's injury directly leads
to Gay getting a job. But Pinero only had that
job because Moody was cut, and now Boody has a
job because Gay lost his. These three guys are just
constantly rotating through the league's open spots.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It makes the position feel completely disposable, like you're not
an asset they're developing. You're a tool they use until
it gets a tiny bit dull, and then they just
grab another one, sometimes the same one they threw away
a few months ago.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
That is the number one takeaway for anyone trying to
understand the specialist market. There's a big pool of guys
who are all talented enough, and successes literally defined week
to week. A kicker just doesn't have the same kind
of leverage as other positions.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Incredible, Okay, so let's try to synthesize all of this.
Let's pull together the key takeaways from this deep dive.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, we started with the catalyst right the grade one
hamstring strain, a specific injury in a specific spot that
forced the forty nine ers hand and started a forty
eight hour tryout clock.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Then we looked at the smart roster move using the
practice squad to sign Matt Gay, which gives them three
game day elevations without having to burn a spot on
the fifty three man roster, a move that you know,
cost Russell Gage Junior his spot.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, and then there's Matt Gay himself, this profile of
a kicker who is perfect on the easy stuff, the
extra points, but was really struggling with field goals lately,
making the forty nine ers bet on his much better
career average.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And finally we uncovered that amazing kicker carousel. That's circular
logic of Moody to Pinero to Gay and back to Moody.
It proves just how small and how incredibly fast this
market moves.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
It really is a constant, high pressure flow of people.
And he gets back to the psychology of the position.
These guys aren't graded on reading a defense or anything complex.
They're judged on one single physical.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Act and the result of that one action determines if
you stay employed for another week.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It's brutal, which links a really interesting question for you
to think about. Yeah, we see guys get released and
have immediate success somewhere else, right, like Jake Moody walking
into Washington and performing right away. Sure, so what is
the psychological on a veteran like Matt Gay a guy
with one hundred games under his belt. What is that
week to week uncertainty of a practice squad contract really
due to your head?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
He has all that experience, but in reality he's operating
with the same job security as a rookie who just
walked in off the street. Every single kick is basically
a job interview. That's a layer of pressure. We just
don't think.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
About something to mull over until his first kick on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Absolutely, that is the story behind the Transaction Wire. Thanks
for joining us for this deep dive.
Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today. We're we're taking
what looks like a tiny little news item on the surface, right,
you know, a kicker getting signed to a practice squad,
and we're going to use it to really blow open
this whole, frantic, high stakes world of NFL specialists.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's a perfect example, it really is. We're diving into
the reports around the San Francisco forty nine ers and
a recent injury, and you'll see how one single move
just starts this cascade.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
The total domino effect.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Exactly a chain reaction of tryouts, releases, signings, It connects
a bunch of different teams.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
So our mission for you today is to use this
one transaction to really understand the specialist market, to see
why a kicker's job is so so unstable, How one
guy's hamstring injury or another guy's miskick can just completely
reset the board. It's a world with like zero margin.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
For error, and it all starts with the catalyst, the
injury that kicked this whole thing off.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
That would be eighty Pinero, the forty nine ers kicker.
He's officially out and the reports are pretty clear this
wasn't something he could just you know play through.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh absolutely not. The sources confirm he suffered a grade
one hamstring strain. Now for anyone knows and no, a
grade one is technically the mildest kind, just a microscopic tears.
But the key detail, and this is everything, is the location.
It's in his right leg. It is kicking leg, his
kicking legs sustained in that wind against the Cardinals. So
even a mild strain is a huge deal.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Right, because his entire job is just generating maximum explosive
power from that exact spot. So what does week to
week really mean? For a kicker?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
It means uncertainty. I mean another player alignment or someone
might be able to tape it up and get through it.
But for a kicker, no chance, any hesitation, any tiny
drop in power can send the ball wide. So when
coach Kyle Shanahan says week to week, that's not really
a medical diagnosis. Its code is him saying we have
a job opening effective immediately.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And that code sends the front office scrambling. You can't
go into a Sunday without a kicker, or at least
a plan B. So that brings us to the actual mechanics.
How do they handle it.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
They made a really smart, low risk move. They need
a replacement, so they got Matt Gay. But they signed
them straight to the practice squad on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, so why the practice squad? Why not just put
them right on the main fifty three man roster. What's
the advantage there.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
It's all about risk management. Roster spots and cap space
are like gold. So by putting Gay on the practice squad,
they don't have to cut someone from the active roster
while they wait and see how Pinero's hamstring heals.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Up, so they can keep their depth maybe at BB
or receiver somewhere else exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
They keep the main roster intact. And the best part
is they can elevate Gay from the practice squad for
game day up to three.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Times without having to sign him long term.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Correct, So if Piniera is only out for a week,
maybe two, the forty nine ers have used basically zero
long term resources. It's the definition of a tribe. Before
you buy.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's amazing how one little muscle strain sets this whole
organizational machine into motion. And it wasn't just a single
phone call to Matt Gay, was it. The report said
this was an intense couple of day process.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh is a frenzy, a tryout frenzy. They knew the
clock was ticking, so they brought in a bunch of guys.
They want to see the legs in person.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So who was on that list? Who did they actually
bring in to compete for this temporary job.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Let's see they worked at Andrews Carlson, John Parker, Romo
Tanner Brown and Cade York. Wow. Yeah, that's a deep
list of available specialists, which again just shows you how
many guys are out there waiting for a call. They
basically had them kick for two days in an empty
stadium and picked the one who looked best.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And the winner of that kicking gauntlet was the veteran
Matt Gay. But like you said, even a practice squad
spot isn't free. Someone has to go.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Right, the practice squad has what sixteen spots, So to
make room for Gay, they had to release wide receiver
Russell Gage Junior.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Okay, let's pause on that for a second, because Russell
Gage is not some unknown rookie. He's a legit NFL
receiver who's had starting reps. He is, and they cut
him a potential off offensive weapon to make room for
a kicker who might only play one game. What does
that tell you about the priority of the specialist position.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It tells you that the risk of not having a
reliable kicker for even one Sunday is seen as greater
than the benefit of having extra depth at receiver. It's
that simple. Gage was a nice to have for the future,
Gay is a must have for right now.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
That makes perfect sense. So let's shift to Matt Gay himself.
We said he's a veteran over one hundred career games,
which begs the question, why was a guy with that
resume available for a practice squad job in the middle
of the season.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, that's the whole story right there. That's the volatility
we're talking about. He had just been released by his
previous team, the Washington Commanders, just a few days earlier,
and not.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
For an injury. This was a performance thing.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
One one hundred percent performance. The report said his release
was because of continued struggles, and it all came to ahead.
In his last game, he missed two field goals in
an overtime loss to the Dolphins. Ouch in the NFL,
for a ca your entire career resume can be erased
by one or two bad kicks in a big moment.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So let's look at the numbers. With Washington, he was
thirteen of nineteen on field goals in ten games. That's
what sixty eight point four percent.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That is just not gonna cut it. It's unsustainable. A
team can't go into a game thinking there's a one
in three chance their kicker is going to miss. But
here's the really interesting part, the conflict in the stats. Okay,
on extra points, he was perfect twenty two for twenty two, so.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Wait, he's automatic on the short gimme kicks, but a
total liability on the longer ones that actually decide the
games exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
It's the ultimate high wire act. And so the question
for the forty nine ers becomes, are we betting on
the recent slump or are we betting on his career?
His career averages eighty four percent, which is solid.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
So they're gambling that this was just a bad stretch
in Washington and that a change of scenery will bring
back the old Matt Gay.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
That's the bet. They are betting on the career, not
the slump.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
This is fascinating. Okay, so we've got the injury, the
try out, the roster math, and Gaye's shaky recent history.
But now here's where it gets really interesting. This is
where you see just how small the NFL world really is.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
It really is the connectivity of the kicker market is
just wild. So we just established that Washington released Matt
Gay from missing.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Those kicks, right, So Washington needs a new kicker. Who
do they sign?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
They signed Jake Moody.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Jake Moody. Now that name should ring a bell for
the forty.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Nine ers, right, It absolutely should, because here's the full circle.
Washington replaces Gay with Moody. But the San Francisco forty
nine ers had released Jake Moody way back in week two.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Why they cut Moody in week two?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
They cut him to sign the guy who just got hurt,
Eddie Pinero.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Oh my gosh, let me let me walk through that again.
So the Niners cut Moody to sign Pinero. Months go by,
Pinero gets hurt. The Niners need a guy, so they
signed Gay, right, and Gay was only available because Washington
cut him to sign Moody, the same guy the Niners
started this whole chain with.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It is a perfect brutal triangle. Pinero's injury directly leads
to Gay getting a job. But Pinero only had that
job because Moody was cut, and now Boody has a
job because Gay lost his. These three guys are just
constantly rotating through the league's open spots.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It makes the position feel completely disposable, like you're not
an asset they're developing. You're a tool they use until
it gets a tiny bit dull, and then they just
grab another one, sometimes the same one they threw away
a few months ago.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
That is the number one takeaway for anyone trying to
understand the specialist market. There's a big pool of guys
who are all talented enough, and successes literally defined week
to week. A kicker just doesn't have the same kind
of leverage as other positions.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Incredible, Okay, so let's try to synthesize all of this.
Let's pull together the key takeaways from this deep dive.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, we started with the catalyst right the grade one
hamstring strain, a specific injury in a specific spot that
forced the forty nine ers hand and started a forty
eight hour tryout clock.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Then we looked at the smart roster move using the
practice squad to sign Matt Gay, which gives them three
game day elevations without having to burn a spot on
the fifty three man roster, a move that you know,
cost Russell Gage Junior his spot.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, and then there's Matt Gay himself, this profile of
a kicker who is perfect on the easy stuff, the
extra points, but was really struggling with field goals lately,
making the forty nine ers bet on his much better
career average.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And finally we uncovered that amazing kicker carousel. That's circular
logic of Moody to Pinero to Gay and back to Moody.
It proves just how small and how incredibly fast this
market moves.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
It really is a constant, high pressure flow of people.
And he gets back to the psychology of the position.
These guys aren't graded on reading a defense or anything complex.
They're judged on one single physical.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Act and the result of that one action determines if
you stay employed for another week.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It's brutal, which links a really interesting question for you
to think about. Yeah, we see guys get released and
have immediate success somewhere else, right, like Jake Moody walking
into Washington and performing right away. Sure, so what is
the psychological on a veteran like Matt Gay a guy
with one hundred games under his belt. What is that
week to week uncertainty of a practice squad contract really
due to your head?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
He has all that experience, but in reality he's operating
with the same job security as a rookie who just
walked in off the street. Every single kick is basically
a job interview. That's a layer of pressure. We just
don't think.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
About something to mull over until his first kick on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Absolutely, that is the story behind the Transaction Wire. Thanks
for joining us for this deep dive.
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