San Francisco’s kicking carousel has spun quite a bit this season. The 49ers started the season with Jake Moody putting the ball through the uprights, although not frequently enough to keep him on the roster. The team has used Eddie Pineiro since then, but the veteran got injured and left the Niners looking for a replacement yet again.
The team signed Super Bowl champion Matt Gay to be their kicker just in time for their Monday Night Football contest against the Carolina Panthers, and the internet can’t get enough of the signing.
Besides the fact that grown adults with an adolescent sense of humor always find it funny when an athlete has “gay” in their name, the fact that the former Los Angeles Rams kicker signed specifically with San Francisco seemed to get a rise out of the more immature sections of NFL fandom.
NEWS: Former Los Angeles #Rams standout kicker Matt Gay signed with the San Francisco #49ers today.
Gay is a former Pro Bowler and Super Bowl Champion with Los Angeles.
Matt is 31 years old, 6-feet tall, and 230 pounds. pic.twitter.com/4ZT0mgstuW
— MLFootball (@MLFootball) November 20, 2025
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Was a headline of “Gay in San Francisco” really necessary? It’s a harmless joke as long as people keep the comments PG-rated. ML Football’s idea to put Gay’s height, weight and age like he’s a profile on a dating app only adds to the gag.
The original post led to myriad low-intelligence responses. One person posted, “He’ll be fine I heard his kind is welcome in San Fran.”
Another person said, “His jersey will be a best seller in the area!” There was one outright homophobic comment that we won’t repeat.
Having the last name Gay was not always pleasant for him and his family, he said in 2019 when he wore special cleats to support anti-bullying efforts.
“I got bullied and teased all the time for my last name and things like that,” he said at the time while he was kicking for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “Luckily I was stronger willed than they were and overcome it. There’s a lot of kids that get bullied in this world and have no way to stand up for themselves.’’
Gay was the kicker who sent the Rams to the Super Bowl during the 2021 season.
The good that comes out of the story and the puns surrounding it is the reminder that the Bay Area has been such an LGBTQ-friendly metropolis for so many decades. Google lists San Francisco first when searching for “friendliest gay cities in the U.S.” Harvey Milk’s election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in the late 1970s also added to the city’s iconic queerness.
Matt Gay certainly isn’t the first athlete or the most famous to have that last name (or other “gay” sounding names). Rudy Gay was one of the best scorers in the NBA for the Memphis Grizzlies and Sacramento Kings in the late 2000s and early to mid-2010s. Tyson Gay was a world-record-breaking sprinter for the United States who won a silver medal at the 2009 World Championships.
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