The Bears are apparently re-living one nightmare play over and over again — and took prospective kickers down with them.
Sports Illustrated detailed the Bears’ bizarre search for a kicker this offseason after releasing Cody Parkey following the infamous double-doink boot at the end of Chicago’s 16-15 wild-card loss to Philadelphia.
The story included quotes from several kickers, some anonymous, who were among nine to try out for the Bears this offseason. Many of the kickers described a negative environment in the kicking room, perceived bias from consultant Jamie Kohl and Bears coach Matt Nagy’s obsession with field goals of 43 yards — the distance from which Cody Parkey missed in an attempt to win a wild-card playoff game in January.
Notre Dame’s Justin Yoon was one of nine kickers that were invited to try out for the spot starting in May with the team’s three-day minicamp in which kicks of exactly 43 yards were emphasized.
“It’s not efficient for the team to continuously beat that one dead horse the whole time,” Yoon told the magazine. “You have to build a system of confidence for your kicker. I don’t think that’s how the Bears are running it.”
After trying out nine kickers, the Bears kept four on their roster for an extended period, then whittled the competition to two entering training camp: Elliott Fry and Eddy Pineiro. Fry was waived on Sunday, but Nagy said that doesn’t necessarily mean Pineiro — acquired for a conditional seventh-round pick from Oakland in May — has won the job.
“Is the competition over? Between those two, yeah,” Nagy said.
Nagy defended his team’s exhaustive search for a suitable kicker this offseason, in light of the Sports Illustrated story.
“I understand, we brought in a lot of kickers that came in here,” Nagy told reporters Wednesday. “To me, I look at it as a positive, in the fact that we said we were going to turn over every stone to find whoever’s out there. We felt like we, at that point in time, when we brought in a bunch of kickers, we’re going to test them all out and see what they can do.”
The Bears hired Kohl — an independent kicking coach — to coach their own kickers in May. Multiple kickers told Sports Illustrated that Kohl appeared biased toward kickers who had previously attended his camps.
“All of Jamie’s guys, they could have shanked the kick, and it was like, ‘Oh, you have really good rotation, your foot is wrapping around the ball,'” an anonymous kicker said in the story. “I don’t think this situation will be solved or will be what the team needs to be until Jamie Kohl is gone. The way he very much tries to control a room, tries to be the alpha.”
— With Field Level Media
