TAMPA, Fla. – When kicker Jake Moody left the field after his third missed field goal of the game Sunday, San Francisco 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel was there to greet him on the sideline.

Samuel had just seen Moody miss from 44 yards after previous failures from 49 and 50 yards. That was on top of Samuel’s own frustrations with the offense’s continued inability to finish drives with touchdowns instead of field goal attempts.

It all came to fruition when Samuel confronted Moody, with long-snapper Taybor Pepper also getting into the mix. After some back and forth and small pushes between Samuel and Pepper, things calmed down.

“Normally I don’t even get hit like that, but I was just frustrated in the heat of the moment, a close match and I got a little out of character,” Samuel said. “But I’ll talk to Moody and we’ll get over it.”

More than three minutes later, the tension between Moody and Samuel turned into a team-wide celebration. With three seconds left, Moody got his chance for redemption.

Going in the same direction from the same distance and at the same hash, Moody was able to take into account the wind that had pushed his previous attempt well. On the sidelines, teammates, including tight end George Kittle and linebacker Fred Warner, couldn’t watch.

Moody stepped up and squeezed the try into the right upright for a 23-20 win as time expired. It was the first walk-off kick of Moody’s young career.

“(I) really, really wanted a chance to redeem myself and felt really confident, really good in that direction,” Moody said. “(I) saw what happened with the last one and was able to make an adjustment and see it through.”

The kick sealed a much-needed road victory for the 49ers, who improved to 5-4 and have won consecutive games for the first time this season. But it didn’t happen without a lot of drama, most of which centered on Moody and the special teams.

Moody returned from a high right ankle sprain suffered in an Oct. 6 loss to the Arizona Cardinals and had a strong week of practice before his struggles on Sunday, coach Kyle Shanahan said.

“He looked great this week,” Shanahan said. “You’re only as good as your last kick. He did a great job winning that game for us in the end.”

The Niners felt so strongly about Moody’s return that they released kicker Anders Carlson from the practice squad to give Moody, who was 13 of 14 before the ankle sprain, his job back. Carlson had gone 5 of 5 on field goal attempts in Weeks 7 and 8, including a pair of over 50 yards.

According to Moody, his first miss from 49 went wide left because the wind that had pushed the ball back to the right had died down. He said he just pulled the 50-yard attempt wide left, and that his miss from 44 yards was the result of the wind coming back and sliding the ball just right. It led to the heated moment with Samuel.

Pepper said Samuel’s message to Moody was to “lock in,” but Pepper wanted to defend his kicker.

“It’s hard to be a specialist,” Pepper said. “Sometimes it’s feast or famine. … Football is a big emotion. Jake was having a hard time there, so he stood up for Jake. There was still time on the clock, so the game wasn’t over yet. Everyone knows what It isn’t over until the clock hits zero. They all count three, even though it’s a field goal.’

The Niners got another chance after a penalty-plagued defense allowed the Bucs to tie the game with 41 seconds left. San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy calmly completed four straight passes to reach Tampa’s 26, paving the way for Moody’s winner.

For his part, Moody said there is “no need for any kind of apology or discussion,” although Samuel said he planned to talk to Moody to ensure they could move forward.

“I think he’s got a little dog in him,” Samuel said. “I didn’t say anything crazy to him. I was just a little frustrated at the time. But he went out and won the game, of course, and it didn’t bother him, so we’ll move past it.”

In the midst of the wild kick day, the 49ers also welcomed back running back Christian McCaffrey from the Achilles tendonitis that kept him out of the first eight games. McCaffrey wasn’t exactly comfortable, playing 57 of 65 offensive snaps and posting 107 scrimmage yards on 19 touches.

It was McCaffrey’s fifth season debut with 100 or more scrimmage yards since entering the league in 2017. Only Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill has more (six) in that span.

Despite the heavy workload after such a long layoff, McCaffrey said he came out “pretty well,” although he wanted to reserve judgment for Monday morning.

“I never expect anything,” McCaffrey said. “When my number is called, I like to be out there. I think when I go back and watch the tape, I’m sure there will be things that, just get back into the feeling of a real game, That’s the third time I’ve had the pads at eight weeks. So just getting back into the swing of things, that was a really good thing for me to do. I think there’s a few things that I maybe didn’t feel 100 percent myself in but That’s normal when you haven’t played for a long time, and I’ll learn from that and grow and just keep moving forward.”