Chicago Bears: Kicker situation threatens to spoil great expectations

The Chicago Bears have high hopes for the 2019 season. If they don’t fix their kicking woes, however, all hopes for a magical season will go out the door.

There is a special feeling surrounding the Chicago Bears this year. They just had their Bears100 Celebration last weekend that brought such joy seeing the past and the present franchise players unite. There is some magic going around Halas Hall.

The roster, for the most part, is very solid. There is plenty of depth at just about every position. The front office overhauled the running back unit and now the team has plenty of players who are athletic and can be solid assets in the passing game as well. Additionally, the team added more receiving weapons, bringing in athletic receivers who can also make contested catches.

Also, the defense looks to continue its dominance. As good as the unit was last season, the players feel they can play even better this season. There is a new defensive coordinator, Chuck Pagano, who probably uses a more aggressive system than the previous coordinator, Vic Fangio, used.  That’s bad news for the rest of the league. There are dark clouds on the horizon, however.

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Remember how the season ended last year. A double-doink spoiled an otherwise wonderful season. The kicking game not only cost the team in the end, but it also cost the team a first-round bye that would give the team an extra week of rest and possibly allowed some of the injured players who missed the game to return.

While general manager Ryan Pace did a great job of tweaking the roster so the Bears could contend better than last season, he hasn’t done enough to have a dependable kicker. They are in the same place today that they were in at the beginning of the new league year. They got rid of Cody Parkey, but they now have three kickers on the team who haven’t played a single regular season game in the NFL.

Oh wait, make that two kickers. The Bears announced that they cut Chris Blewitt. Blewitt, Elliott Fry and Eddy Pineiro were vying for the open kicker spot. Now it comes down to two.

Neither one has impressed, however. The day before the Bears cut Blewitt, the coaches had the kickers attempt a 42-yard field goal in front of their teammates and 25 former players who watched the workout. All three kickers missed their attempts.

If the fans are frustrated with this, head coach Matt Nagy joins them, per ESPN.com:

"Um, whatever went through your mind went through my mind. Yeah, no, I mean, that’s about as real as it gets. They were 0-for-3 out there. For today, we can’t have that. We are going to figure this thing out but 0-for-3 today, no good."

The Bears tried a lot of things to try to get these kickers to get on the straight and narrow. Pace had over 20 kickers come in for tryouts. Nagy put them in high-tension situations. He broke up the team into two halves and had one kicker represent on half and the other another half. The guy who missed the field goal attempt would have his half continue drills while the other half got the rest of the practice off.

They even narrowed the goal posts to try to help their kickers’ accuracy. Nothing has worked yet.

The Chicago Bears need to stop the games and get the kicking situation worked out or risk losing this season before it even begins. They have a tougher schedule this season and there will be a few games that could be decided by a field goal. We already saw what a missed kick could do for a team’s season and we don’t want to have a repeat of that.

While the Bears narrowed the kicker’s race down to two, there is a feeling that the kicker who ultimately wins the race isn’t even on the roster yet. There are some free agent kickers who could be good options. Some of those players are Matt Bryant, Mike Nugent and Kai Forbath. They have the experience one needs to make big kicks. There are plusses and minuses to each and Pace needs to weigh everything to decide if they go to one of them.

There is also the big shadow that Robbie Gould casts. The Chicago Bears leader in field goals made and points scored has voiced his desire to stay home in the Chicagoland area and demands a trade from the San Francisco 49ers. The Niners franchised him but so far he refuses to sign it and announced he wouldn’t attend mandatory training camp when it starts late in July.

Ever since the Bears cut him, Gould has been lights out. He’s converted 82 of his 85 field goal attempts since then, including 6-for-6 from beyond 50 yards.

Acquiring Gould is a longshot. Yes, he wants to be in Chicago. The fans want him in Chicago. I think even the Bears want him in Chicago. The problem is that to get him they need to make a trade. Do the Bears have the assets to pull off a big-time trade for the second consecutive season? Doing so may very well cripple their future. Is it worth it if the result is a Super Bowl win?

This is a very big decision that Pace and the Chicago Bears have to make. The present and the future of the franchise could be on the line. Whatever the decision, the team needs to end this circus, choose a kicker, and go on with the season. The situation is out of hand and they aren’t making it any better.