The San Francisco 49ers shook up their special teams on Thursday, releasing long snapper Taybor Pepper after five seasons with the team.

Well, they could move quickly to find a replacement, as KRPC’s Aaron Wilson reported that the 49ers have ‘legitimate interest’ in former Houston Texans long snapper Jon Weeks to fill their recently-created hole.

Update: The 49ers signed Weeks to a one-year, $1.422 million deal. He will earn $200,000 in guaranteed money.

Weeks, a 15-year pro, has spent his entire career with the Texans but is a free agent this offseason. He earned a Pro Bowl appearance back in 2015 and has never missed a game during his professional career.

We’re not going to pretend to be experts about long-snapping. It’s fairly simple. You snap the ball to its intended target within 1 point, whatever seconds, and make sure that it’s an accurate snap. The 49ers felt like they weren’t getting the necessary production from Pepper, which is why they moved on from the 30-year-old. But Weeks has been in the NFL for over a decade, which indicates the 49ers aren’t as worried about their long-snapper covering punts and are more concerned about the accuracy of the snap.

Pepper signed a three-year, $3.9 million extension with the 49ers in 2023 and was scheduled to play in the final season of that deal in 2025. Instead, San Francisco will take on a $150,000 dead cap hit by releasing him and looking elsewhere for a replacement.

Weeks has been on a year-to-year basis with the Texans since 2020, signing a one-year deal every offseason with the team. That woll be the case now with the 49ers this offseason as they fill their recently created void.

Weeks will be 39 this upcoming season though, so he’d merely be a short-term solution for San Francisco. He will also cost over $140,000 more than Pepper in 2025.