Sourdough Sam
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- Mar 20, 2019
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Wishnowsky has impressive size and athleticism for his position at 6-foot-2 and 218 pounds. He ran a 4.63-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine and posted a 32.5-inch vertical.
“I’m convinced he could have been a running back or a linebacker,” Whittingham said. “He’s 6-foot-2 and 200-something pounds, and we clocked him at like a 4.51. The kid is a phenomenal athlete.”
Utah first learned of Wishnowsky through Nathan Chapman, the head of Prokick Australia. Chapman helps Australian Football League (AFL) players transition into punters and kickers in the American game. He notably worked with Seattle Seahawks All-Pro punter Michael Dickson.
He’s also built a relationship with the University of Utah after sending punter Tom Hackett their way back in 2012. Chapman alerted Whittingham and the rest of Utah’s coaching staff back in 2016 that he had a new punter for them. He told Utah that Wishnowsky was special.
“(Nathan) was right,” Whittingham said. “He was right on the money.”
The 49ers expect Wishnowsky to be a decade-long mainstay in San Francisco. Shanahan was adamant following the draft that the 49ers would have risked missing out on their coveted specialist had they opted to wait another round.
"You'd love to do it in the seventh (round), but I promise you we wouldn't have gotten him if we tried to do it in the fifth (round)," Shanahan said.
Some will continue to grumble over the selection, sticking to their guns that the fourth-rounder could have been spent to fortify a different position group. But the 49ers feel like they’ve added a game-changing weapon to their roster, and given how high they drafted him, it’s fair to say there’s some pressure on him to be just that.