Special Teams Coordinator Brant Boyer Press Conference

Special Teams Coordinator Brant Boyer

Press Conference – May 7, 2026

San Francisco 49ers

You added P Jack Bouwmeester as a rookie punter to compete with your veteran punter. How do you see that competition evolving this summer?

“Well, I’m excited about it. Let those two guys battle it out. You have a veteran guy that’s been in the league a while and is a very athletic guy and interestingly enough, when he was coming out, I was trying to get him as a free agent. So, I had a previous relationship with the guy, with [P Corliss] Waitman. He’s a super good guy, got a real powerful leg, athletic guy. And then Bouwmeester, through all our tape studies, went and worked him out and everything like that, did a heck of a job for us. I’ve known his coach for a long time and trust what he tells me as well. And we really liked him in our interviews and everything like that. I think it’s going to be a great competition moving forward.”

Does having both a lefty and righty help evaluate returners?

“For sure because the ball spins different, right? So, I think it’s really going to help. And I think whoever the dust settles with at that position it’ll be a great experience for those returners to have to catch those balls like that for sure.”

We all saw how effective Green Bay Packers WR Skyy Moore was last year. You don’t have him. Who would be the leading candidates? Would it be WR Jacob Cowing maybe?

“Well, I think there’s a handful of guys certainly in the mix and guys that have done it before. So, it’s going to be interesting to see. You have a handful of guys that kick return, a handful of guys that can do both. You have a handful of guys that only punt return, so it’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out. The good thing is where we’re at with our time right now, that we have time to figure that out. We’ll throw them in the preseason game, see how it goes, and then we’ll go from there.”

Is it a lot less stressful this time coming in without not having to worry about the kicker situation per se because not only is K Eddie Piñeiro back, but he’s signed to a long-term deal where it’s not every kick is do or die?

“Yeah, obviously when Eddie came in, Eddie and I had a previous relationship obviously with him. I always had a great relationship with him, and he came in and did a hell of a job last year. His teammates gravitated towards him and he proved his worth and he got rewarded for it. And I’m happy as hell for him and his family. He did a great job for us last year. And yes, it is a relief to have a proven guy that I have been to battle with obviously and I trust and this team trusts. I think that’s going to be a big thing moving forward for sure.”

Did you see a theme with him in terms of why some of the PATs went askew? He made every field goal attempt except the crossbar in Indy. So why were the PATs an issue?

“I don’t know if that was necessarily an issue or not. I think that Eddie, he steps up and the great part about him is he doesn’t think. Honestly, he steps up and he goes with the mindset that he’s going to make every single kick. Obviously, he did that a great percentage of the time last year and hopefully he continues to do that in the future.”

You mentioned a handful of people in the punt return game, Cowing, WR Junior Bergen. Is WR Christian Kirk one of those?

“Sure. All those guys. Kirk and [WR Ricky] Pearsall and all those guys. There’s a couple of the free agent guys that we have in here that have done it before. So, there’s a big group of guys there that we’re going to put back there and hopefully we can get them all reps in the preseason and see who shakes out. That’s going to be a really good competition that returner spot this year.”

What about at kick returner? What kind of skill set are you looking for at that kick return spot?

“Well, it all depends on who it shakes out to be, right? So, you have more of the guys that break tackles or vertical guys, or it depends on what scheme we’re running, what returner we have. If it’s a smaller, faster guy, then you have to run different schemes with those kinds of guys. So, it all depends on who shakes out and who’s it going to be. Like I said, in each of those positions in the punt returner spot, in the kick returner spot, there’s five or six, seven guys in each of those spots that are going to battle that out and we’ll see how it shakes out.”

Last year it seemed like LB Luke Gifford and CB Siran Neal really kind of took over a leadership role on the coverage units. Were there younger guys that began to emerge throughout the season that you’re sort of excited to see sort of move into those leadership positions?

“Well, I think that anytime you have guys like Gifford and Neal that can come in and set the tone for your whole group, it’s been awesome. But, all those young guys that got to play especially late, I thought they did a really good job. Sigle did a heck of a job for us. [LB Nick] Martin started coming along there towards the end. I think that we got a new group of young kids coming in that we’re excited about, that are long and they’re fast and everything like that. So, it’s going to be interesting to see how that all shakes out as well. The good thing is, like I said, it’s the core group of our entire group last year in the first year of a system, I thought they did a hell of a job buying into our standard, creating a standard here. Did we finish the way we wanted to finish? Absolutely not. But, I thought they did, overall, a really good job and we’re really excited about the new guys that we added. We’ve got to be more physical. I think we’ve got to tackle better. But certainly, the depth of what we have now and the year of experience will help us.”

I want to ask about LB Jaden Dugger, whether he kind of caught your eye as someone who could potentially be an asset?

“Sure, if you’re that big, that long and that fast, you certainly should be able to help us, that’s for sure. And he is a great kid from what I understand, and very sharp too. So that’ll really help us.”

One of the better special teamers last year in the college football playoffs was DL Mikail Kamara, blocked a punt against Miami in the National Championship Game. Have you seen him as a special teamer? What do you think?

“I think all those D-Ends kind of transfers over. Are they going to be a linebacker? Are they going to be a D-End? Specifically with these kickoff rules that we have, right? It’s turned into more of a two-hand kind of deal and those bigger guys are really valuable now. It never used to be that way. Kamara, there are a bunch of guys in the mix with that too as well. The [Miami Dolphins DL] Robert Beal kind of bodies. The bigger, taller guys, the D-Ends that really help guys on teams, and we’re looking forward to having all those guys for sure.”

What have you seen from that group of Australian guys in particular?

“I think that all those Australian guys, obviously, they’re super talented guys. I mean, it seems like they’ve had a ball in their hands since they were tiny kids. The way they can make that ball move and all the different kicks that they have and stuff like that. I really think that the NFL’s done a great job of bringing all those guys in, and you see it all through college now, that a lot of Australian punters and kickers and stuff like that, and they have some kicks that that are hard to replicate and they’re hard to catch for returners. And so, it’ll be interesting to see how this this plays out with the punter position for sure.”

Your unit was towards the top statistically in all of the league. How do you plan to duplicate that this year just going into the season?

“Well, like I said, I think there’s a lot of things that we did well. I think we’ve still got to continue to play smart. We didn’t commit a lot of penalties last year. I think we’ve got to continue that. We certainly want to shore up a lot of things that I didn’t like in the offseason here. I think that there’s a lot overall of, I wouldn’t say that I’m unhappy with last year at all. I thought that, like I said, the standard that we set and the overall buy-in of the entire team was awesome. You’ve got to hand it to the players. They did a hell of a job, and they busted their butts for us and did a great job. Like I said, our finish was not nearly good enough for the standard that we need here. And that’s going to be a big part of what we’re getting after them this offseason. And we’ve got to finish better, we’ve got to be more physical, we’ve got to tackle better. And you know, while we had a good season, decent season last year, it’s not nearly good enough for us to win a championship, and we need to help our team more. Period.”

What went into the decision not to bring back P Thomas Morstead?

“Well, I think that number one that, obviously I have a relationship with Thomas. There is not a human being that I respect more than Thomas Morstead as a player and as a friend and as a man. I think it’s part of the business, right? And we’re excited as hell about the two guys that we have. But, you’re always trying to get guys in to compete and everything like that. And there’s a lot of stuff that goes into that as well, the contractual sides and stuff like that. So, I think T-Mo’s still got a bunch in him. I really do. I think he’ll play some more, but we’re really super excited about the two guys we have and we’ll see how it shakes out.”