49ers' Wishnowsky named NFC Special Teams Player of the Month

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Mitch Wishnowsky on Thursday became the first punter in 49ers history to be selected as NFC Special Teams Player of the Month.

Wishnowsky, a native of Australia, is a third-year player whom the 49ers selected in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft from Utah.

He was previously named NFC Special Teams Player of the Week after his performance against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 2.

In three games in September, Wishnowsky landed eight of his 11 punts inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. He averaged 46.8 yards per punt with a 43.3 net average. His punts have been returned for a total of 19 yards.

Richard Hightower, 49ers special teams coordinator, said last week after the game against the Eagles that the entire special teams unit shares in Wishnowsky’s individual honors.

“All the punt team is fired up for him on that,” Hightower said. “The gunners did a wonderful job going down there and beating their blocks, shooting their guns, basically downing balls. The protection did a nice job giving Mitch time to punt the ball so that he could drop us some good punts in there and flip the field for us and help our defense.

"So that was a really, really, it was a really good performance by the punt team.”

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Wishnowsky becomes the first 49ers player to win Special Teams Player of the Month since kicker Robbie Gould for December of 2019. The only other 49ers player to win the award since its inception in 1986 was kicker David Akers in December 2011.

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