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Nick Wagoner, ESPN Staff Writer
TAMPA, Fla. — As kicker Jake Moody walked off the field following his third missed field goal of the game Sunday, San Francisco 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel was there to greet him near the sideline.
Samuel had just watched Moody miss from 44 yards after earlier failures from 49 and 50 yards. That came on top of Samuel’s own frustrations about the offense’s continued inability to finish drives with touchdowns rather than field goal attempts.
It all spilled over as Samuel confronted Moody, with long-snapper Taybor Pepper stepping into the mix as well. After some back-and-forth and small shoves between Samuel and Pepper, things calmed down.
“Normally I don’t even get like that, but just frustrated in the heat of battle, a close game and I kind of got out of character a little bit,” Samuel said. “But I’ll talk to Moody and we’ll get past it.”
A little more than three minutes later, the tension between Moody and Samuel turned into a team-wide celebration. With three seconds left, Moody got his shot at redemption.
Going in the same direction from the same distance and on the same hash, Moody was able to factor in the wind that had pushed his previous try right. On the sideline, teammates including tight end George Kittle and linebacker Fred Warner couldn’t watch.
Moody stepped up and squeezed the attempt inside the right upright for a 23-20 victory as time expired. It was the first walk-off kick of Moody’s young career.
“[I] really, really wanted a chance to redeem myself and felt really confident, really good going that direction,” Moody said. “[I] saw what happened with the previous one and was able to make an adjustment and put it through.”
The kick sealed a much-needed road win for the 49ers, who improved to 5-4 and have won consecutive games for the first time this season. But it didn’t come without plenty of drama, most of which centered on Moody and the special teams.
Making his return from a high right ankle sprain suffered in an Oct. 6 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, Moody had a strong week of practice before his Sunday struggles, coach Kyle Shanahan said.
“He looked great in the week,” Shanahan said. “You’re only as good as your last kick. He did a hell of a job winning that game for us at the end.”
The Niners felt strongly enough about Moody’s return that they released kicker Anders Carlson from the practice squad to give Moody, who was 13-of-14 before the ankle sprain, his job back. Carlson had gone 5-of-5 on field goal tries in Weeks 7 and 8, including a pair from 50-plus yards.
According to Moody, his first miss from 49 went wide left because the wind that had been pushing the ball back to the right died down. He said he pulled the 50-yard attempt just wide left, and then his miss from 44 yards was the result of the wind coming back and shoving the ball just right. It led to the heated moment with Samuel.
Pepper said Samuel’s message to Moody was to “lock in,” but Pepper wanted to defend his kicker.
“It’s hard being a specialist,” Pepper said. “Sometimes, it’s feast or famine. … Football is high emotion. Jake was having a little rough patch there, so standing up for Jake. There was still time on the clock, so the game wasn’t over. Everybody knows what happened at the end. It’s not over until the clocks hit zero. They all count three when it’s a field goal. I’ve always got 4’s back.”
Indeed, the Niners got one more opportunity after a penalty-plagued defense allowed a game-tying field goal to the Bucs with 41 seconds left. San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy calmly completed four straight passes to get to Tampa’s 26, setting the stage for Moody’s winner.
For his part, Moody said “there doesn’t need to be” any sort of apology or discussion, though Samuel said he planned to talk with Moody to ensure they can move on.
“I think he has a little dog in him,” Samuel said. “I wasn’t saying nothing crazy to him. I was just kind of frustrated at the time. But he went out there and won the game of course, and he wasn’t bothered by it, so we move past it.”
In the midst of the wild kicking day, the 49ers also welcomed back running back Christian McCaffrey from the Achilles tendinitis that kept him out the first eight games. McCaffrey wasn’t exactly eased in, playing 57 of 65 offensive snaps and posting 107 scrimmage yards on 19 touches.
It was McCaffrey’s fifth season debut with 100 or more scrimmage yards since he entered the league in 2017. Only Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill has more (six) in that span.
Despite the heavy workload after such a long layoff, McCaffrey said he came out feeling “pretty good,” although he wanted to reserve judgment for Monday morning.
“I never go in expecting anything,” McCaffrey said. “It’s just if my number’s called, I like to be out there. I think when I go back and look at the tape, I’m sure there’s going to be some stuff that, just getting back into a feel of a real game, that’s the third time I’ve had the pads on eight weeks. So just getting back into a groove, that was really good for me to do. I think there’s a couple things that maybe I didn’t feel like myself a hundred percent, but that’s normal when you haven’t played in a long time, and I’ll learn and grow from those and just keep trucking along.”