Can 49er Joe Nedney Outkick Killer Robot?

Actually, the robot is even meaner looking than Super Toe...

​In a blatant publicity stunt we just couldn't resist, the San Francisco 49ers' excellent placekicker, Joe Nedney, will engage in a field goal battle with a 300-pound titanium killer robot named Ziggy.

Not bad, Joe. But the robot awaits.

​For those of you brought here via a Google search for the terms "300-pound" and "kicker," no, this is not an article about Sebastian Janikowski.

Instead, Nedney will have a kicking battle with Ziggy at 11 a.m. on Monday at Kezar Stadium to promote the forthcoming RoboGames from April 23 to 25 in San Mateo. Ziggy is a fighting robot whose one "foot" is usually used to flip his mechanical opponents. He is being reconfigured to boot footballs forward rather than upend fellow sumo-sized robots. His competition with Nedney may be intense; Ziggy has purportedly booted a 60-yarder in practice. 

Ziggy, incidentally, is the creation of Michael Worry, a Canadian-born engineer who relocated to Silicon Valley in 1997; he is the CEO of Nuvation. In addition to Ziggy the kicking robot, he's also created Texas Heat, which fries robot opponents with a flame thrower (that one won't be making an appearance on the gridiron).





Event organizers have invited members of the media to attempt to outboot Ziggy. Your humble narrator never played football, but did manage to boot a few pickup 40-yard field goals during the Clinton administration and once put a 25-yarder into the stands at Martin Stadium in Pullman, Wash. while playing with some kids after a Cal-Washington State game. But that was several heath plans ago. Put your money on the robot. And Nedney.

Photo of Nedney   |   John Martinez Pavliga