How Mitch Wishnowsky's Absence Could Hurt the 49ers Against the Texans

The 49ers placed him on the Reserve/COVID-19 List on Monday. He will have to pass two Covid tests before he can return to the playing field.

Grant Cohn | Dec 28, 2021

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San Francisco 49ers

Two weeks ago, we thought the 49ers were a lock to make the playoffs and beat the Houston Texans this Sunday.

Now, the 49ers pretty much have to beat the Texans to make the playoffs, and beating Houston is no given. And not just because Jimmy Garoppolo could miss the game with a thumb injury.

Punter Mitch Wishnowsky also could miss the game. The 49ers placed him on the Reserve/COVID-19 List on Monday. He will have to pass two Covid tests before he can return to the playing field. So the 49ers special teams potentially could take a hit. And their special teams were bad already.

Replacing Wishnowsky with a punter off the street shouldn't be a big challenge, because Wishnowsky isn't a particularly good punter. He shanks short punts weekly. I'm confident the 49ers can sign a free agent punter who can replicate Wishnowsky's modest net yards per punt average.

But Wishnowsky is much more than just a punter for the 49ers. He also is their holder and their kickoff specialist. So if he can't play, the 49ers will need to replace him with three different people -- a punter, a holder and kickoff specialist.

The backup holder probably will be third-string quarterback Nate Sudfeld. How much time has he and kicker Robbie Gould spent together practicing field goals and extra points? How good of a holder is Sudfeld? Will he cost the 49ers a field goal this Sunday?

The backup kickoff specialist most likely will be Gould, which means he'll have to do more kicking this Sunday. The 49ers made Wishnowsky the kickoff specialist primarily to preserve Gould's leg and not wear him out. Will these kickoffs affect his field goal attempts?

Will special teams cost the 49ers yet another game they should win?

Published Dec 28, 2021

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.