Kyle Shanahan confirms what fans thought about 49ers booting Mitch Wishnowsky

The San Francisco 49ers opted to take a torch to their special teams group this offseason, slashing and burning it down to the core and rebuilding it anew, headlined by onboarding former New York Jets special teams coordinator Brant Boyer.

The Niners' efforts extended to the specialists, too, including bidding farewell to long-snapper Taybor Pepper and then replacing him with a well-established veteran, Jon Weeks.

Such changes ultimately befell punter longstanding punter Mitch Wishnowsky, too, who was let go in the immediate aftermath of inking another former Jets specialist, Thomas Morstead.

Fans rightfully questioned whether or not Boyer's influence was behind the Morstead signing and subsequent Wishnowsky release.

Not long after, head coach Kyle Shanahan confirmed as much.

Kyle Shanahan confirms Brant Boyer wanted to change out punters

Speaking to reporters from the first day of media-viewable organized team activities, Shanahan revealed what many thought: Boyer played a key role in onboarding Morstead.

"It was really hard to cut ties with Mitch," Shanahan said. "I love Mitch. He’s one of my favorite guys I’ve been around, especially from a special team standpoint and punter standpoint. He’s such a football player in how he plays. The guys love him.

"But when you just look into contract situations, how last year went and things, the fact that Morstead became available, Brant being so familiar with him and having that relationship it ended up making it a decision that wasn’t easy but we felt all confident it was best for our team."

Morstead spent the last two years under Boyer with Gang Green.

Wishnowsky, meanwhile, was beset by back issues for much of last year, which held him out of nine games last season.

"He is healthy," Shanahan said of Wishnowsky. "So, he’s going to go to a team and help a team out a lot. But those are things you’ve always got to predict. You don’t know how those things go and you’ve got to take the risk-reward and something that to me wasn’t a big risk or worth the risk until someone like Morstead becomes available. And that put us on where we needed to make a decision."

From Shanahan's perspective, health might have played a role. But, Boyer's influence and familiarity with Morstead carried more weight.

Hard to argue that.