By 49ers Webzone,Kirk Larrabee

Copyright yardbarker

The San Francisco 49ers have every reason to be thrilled with their 3-0 start, considering the circumstances.

The 49ers have managed to win their first three games despite not having quarterback Brock Purdy (toe, shoulder) for two of them. They’re without a number of other injured starters, including tight end George Kittle, wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (knee), and safety Malik Mustapha (knee). They were without wide receiver Jauan Jennings (shoulder, ankle) in their 16-15 home win over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. They’ve had to start and/or give heavy reps to multiple rookies and recently acquired players. And they played two of their first three games on the road.

Despite that, they stand at 3-0 after three weeks, with a home game against the Jacksonville Jaguars on the horizon. And they’ve done it in scrappy, hard-nosed fashion, pulling out three close wins against plenty of adversity.

“I’ve just been so proud of the guys in all three games,” head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters after the win over the Cardinals on Sunday. “All three of those games are games that could have gone either way. We’ve had to overcome a lot in those games going into them with some injuries and some people we’ve lost during the games in all three. I think those were some of the games that I think we struggled to win last year, and to have three like that and to win all three, can’t say enough about the guys in there.”

The fact that two of those wins came against divisional opponents is icing on the cake. With Sunday’s win over the Cardinals as well as a 17-13 Week 1 win at Seattle, the 49ers stand alone atop the NFC West, where every division rival has already taken a loss.

“Oh, it’s big,” Shanahan said. “I mean, they all count, but you like to say towards the end the division games count a little bit more. So, these are three wins that could have gone either way. Especially having two on the road and especially two in our own division. Really good start for us and we’ve just got to make sure to keep it up.”

Their performance has been far from perfect, but there’s reason to believe things will get better for the 49ers from here. There was one dark cloud looming over Sunday’s win due to an undiagnosed knee injury to defensive end Nick Bosa, but given the fact that the team is still coming together while other players will be returning from injury in the weeks ahead, the 49ers feel like they are trending up.

“This team is not at its full potential,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said Sunday. “We’re still trying to figure out who we are, too. It’s been gritty and grimy, but we have found ways to figure things out and still finish with a win. We know we’re not a finished product, but we’re going to continue to grow, and right now we’re doing that at 3-0 and 2-0 in our division. Which is a good place to be.”

We’re going to talk about a few of the players who have helped the 49ers get off to that 3-0 start and much more in this version of 49ers Notebook, starting with their new kicker and a couple of rookies that made a big impact against the Cardinals on Sunday.

49ers are finally kicking with confidence

It’s quite possible and maybe even very likely that there won’t be a more important in-season roster move made by the 49ers in 2025 than the decision to waive kicker Jake Moody after Week 1 and replace him with veteran Eddy Piñeiro.

After entering the league as a third-round pick of the 49ers in 2023, Moody entered the season on thin ice after an erratic end to the 2022 season. The 49ers decided they had seen enough of Moody after he missed a 27-yard field goal and had another field goal blocked in the Week 1 win in Seattle, and fortunately they had one of the league’s most accurate field goal kickers in Piñeiro available to take his place.

Piñeiro’s first kick with the 49ers, an extra point attempt in the 26-21 Week 2 win over the New Orleans Saints, sailed wide right. But Piñeiro has been perfect since then, and his kicks have been sailing through the uprights with confidence. On Sunday, Piñeiro played a huge role in the win over the Cardinals, nailing a 35-yard game-winning field goal as time expired after hitting two field goals earlier in the game, one of them from 51 yards.

Why was Piñeiro, who had an 88.3 percent success rate on field goals coming into the season, waiting for a job opportunity to start the season? Who knows, but it doesn’t seem to matter after already having a game-winner under his belt with the 49ers.

“I was sitting on a couch three weeks ago, watching the first game of the season, and now I’m here,” Piñeiro said Sunday. “It’s a blessing and I thank God every day for giving me the opportunity to come here and show what I can do.”

The 49ers and Piñeiro are still getting to know each other, but they’ve obviously already seen enough to feel like they can trust him to make clutch kicks. The 49ers made it easier for him Sunday after running back Christian McCaffrey made a catch during the game’s last drive that moved the ball from the 36-yard line to the 16, but they likely would have had no problem calling on him from any distance after they had gotten within field goal range.

“I was confident,” Shanahan said Sunday. “We don’t have a lot of life experiences together, but yeah, I was feeling good with it and he definitely kept that going. We were in field goal range earlier before that. Loved the screen that Christian did, the guys blocked great for him, got it in there, made it easier, and then we centered it and he hit the game winner.”

Piñeiro has a little swagger to him as well, as he showed with his celebration after the game-winning kick.