Madness at 43 Yards: The Bears Kicker Competition Through the Eyes of Those Who Lived It

Les Grossman

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The Bears released Parkey in March; they will pay more to have him off the roster ($3.5 million) than if they he played this year. Thus, they’re looking for a kicker who is good and cheap. But the size of the group they initially brought in suggested less a kicker competition and more the formation of a K-pop band: nine kickers in all, six rookies and three veteran free agents. (And zero NFL games among them.)

“Nine guys is ridiculous!” says Mike Westhoff, a long-time special teams coordinator for the Jets and Saints. “It’s not that I wouldn’t look at nine guys—I would—but I wouldn’t look at nine guys in a pile. That makes it a sham.”

Adam Vinatieri, the Colts’ likely Hall of Fame kicker, is 46 and entering his 24th NFL season. He says the most competitors he ever faced in training camp was four, before his rookie season in New England. He reflects for a moment, then chuckles. “Nine guys? I don’t know... ”

Normally, kickers—like all the specialists—spend camp toiling in seclusion and, often, relative anonymity. It was immediately clear this wouldn’t be the case in Lake Forest. During his first meeting with the 80-something rookies, coach Matt Nagy introduced himself and his staff, then cued up a video. Highlights from Chicago’s wildly successful 2018 season flashed across the screen to a rap beat . . . until the 43-yard miss and the aftermath. The team mascot, Staley, falls to the ground. Parkey hangs his head. All-Pro defensive tackle Akiem Hicks looks around, confused. Nagy’s mouth is open in shock, his face frozen, his eyes darting back and forth as if searching for an alternative ending.

...

Jamie Kohl, a well-known independent kicking coach, joined the team as a consultant to help Tabor narrow the search. The two charted field goals and recorded extra data like apex, ball speed, distance traveled and launch angle using TrackMan, a radar system widely used by pro golfers to analyze their swings. (Chicago is the first NFL team to use it to evaluate kickers.) After encountering it at a kicking camp earlier in the spring, Tabor reached out to the company to rent the system and two TrackMan employees to manage the complicated software for the Bears’ three-day camp.

...

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https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/08/21/c...l&utm_campaign=themmqb&utm_source=twitter.com
 

Les Grossman

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Interesting read about what the Bears are doing at practice and such.

Also LOL at Hicks looking around confused when Parkey missed that kick ... And ugh, I sense a curse coming to the Bears from the "Parkey Spot"
 

dabears70

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Interesting read about what the Bears are doing at practice and such.

Also LOL at Hicks looking around confused when Parkey missed that kick ... And ugh, I sense a CURE coming to the Bears from the "Parkey Spot"

How bout we change that to "I sense a CURE coming to the Bears from the Parkey spot?

I'll FIFY it
 

Rory Sparrow

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I like the scoresheets. Blewitt's Day 1 comment seemed pretty damning..."improve consistency on live operation"...make more kicks!

Kjellsten was the guy doing punting drills, and they dragged him in to the Day 1 kickoffs and Day 2 FGs...he ended up 3rd overall in kickoffs and first in Day 2 FGs. If that isn't damning enough about how little thought Pace put into who he invited to this kicker tryout, then I don't know what else you would need.
 

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"Kickers are complicated creatures. Teams want to test them in pressure situations in practice to know how they will respond in games, but it’s a thin line between that and setting them up for failure. “It’s not efficient for the team to continuously beat that one dead horse the whole time,” says Yoon. “You have to build a system of confidence for your kicker. I don’t think that’s how the Bears are running it.”

I guess Pinero was deemed most able to kick without ballet slippers. Fuck that shit. Put them under pressure and see how they respond. That confidence needs to be built it.
 
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Visionman

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read the fucking article for the answer to your question.
I did. A bunch of people not associated with the Bears in any way. Using that logic, I suppose they could have interviewed any of us, since we all "lived it" to, right?
 

greg23

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It has been a clown show

There is too much emphasis and focus put on the missed kick (news flash; the new kicker will miss a kick but none of these kickers missed the playoff kick) AND zero emphasis put of the rest of the teams blah performance starting with the bald headed visor wearing guys awful play calling to start the game.

Seems like they've created such and environment where there will be pressure to cut any kicker after they miss a kick.
 

modo

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"But it wasn’t long before the search took on a sort of Rube Goldberg feel"

Best line in the article.....so apt.
 

KittiesKorner

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I did. A bunch of people not associated with the Bears in any way. Using that logic, I suppose they could have interviewed any of us, since we all "lived it" to, right?
you know, every time I come in to READ a thread, there you are, bitching about an article, a player, another poster, or your sore nipples.

Just STFU already, Maybe YOU'RE the troll
 

Mdbearz

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Great Article that was also in the "Fry got cut" thread.

I'll repeat what I said there that this was not a shitshow or a circus act, this was a well thought out plan to approach the search in a completely different and aggressive way.

- They invited more than a normal amount of kickers (I AGREE THE POOL WAS NOT THAT GREAT).
- They hired the best kicking expert in the country
- They rented high tech equipment to help track ball flight information
- They put the kickers in a stressful situation
- They did it EARLY so they could get into Camp with more focus on Offense and Defense
- They traded (possibly) for a kicker that was not a FA.
- They went into camp giving the front runner some legit competition

This is all unlike any other team in the NFL, and that was done on purpose......

There was a common theme among the kickers:
1. Many of them came through the Jamie Kohl kicking camp, so he already had some film and analysis on them.
2. None of them have ever kicked in a regular season game, they already got burnt assuming that a guy that was successful in the NFL would continue to be successful.

This entire process was conducted with a well devised plan...... And we will have to wait to see the results.
 

botfly10

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Through the eyes of those who lived it? Who???

This reads like a poor ccs trolling attempt...

what? you didn't notice the internal documents? The pics are right up there.
 

The Big Grabowski

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Can't wait for the season to start so we can get past all the weird offseason angles on the Bears.

This is a story propped up on the hurt feelings of kickers who have zero NFL in-season experience. WTF? It feels like SI was going for a bigger story here but the Bears wisely wouldn't talk and left them with nothing. Not sure why the editors at SI thought this was worth running.
 

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iueyedoc

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I did. A bunch of people not associated with the Bears in any way. Using that logic, I suppose they could have interviewed any of us, since we all "lived it" to, right?
Well then, either you are lying or you can't fucking read.


“It’s the whole team, the whole coaching staff, the whole front office, all the media watching,” says Carpenter. “There was a weird feeling about the kick, just because the spot we were kicking from.”

“Some of us were getting together like, Hmmm, I thought you made three more kicks than that...” Evans says. “We are all paying attention like hawks to each other. We know who missed, we know how many. Were they taking off points if they thought it was going to get blocked? Did they do that for all of them? It was a very weird deal.”

“Why does [mph] even matter?” asks one kicker, who requested anonymity for fear of hurting his chances to latch on with another team. “If it’s going in, it’s going in. I think they are overanalyzing it. Find a kicker, bring him in. If he does well, keep him going. If he cracks, then let him go.”


When asked during training camp what the range of velocity is for a good kicker, Tabor told reporters, “Oh, it varies by kicker.”
 

HeHateMe

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Well then, either you are lying or you can't fucking read.


“It’s the whole team, the whole coaching staff, the whole front office, all the media watching,” says Carpenter. “There was a weird feeling about the kick, just because the spot we were kicking from.”

“Some of us were getting together like, Hmmm, I thought you made three more kicks than that...” Evans says. “We are all paying attention like hawks to each other. We know who missed, we know how many. Were they taking off points if they thought it was going to get blocked? Did they do that for all of them? It was a very weird deal.”

“Why does [mph] even matter?” asks one kicker, who requested anonymity for fear of hurting his chances to latch on with another team. “If it’s going in, it’s going in. I think they are overanalyzing it. Find a kicker, bring him in. If he does well, keep him going. If he cracks, then let him go.”


When asked during training camp what the range of velocity is for a good kicker, Tabor told reporters, “Oh, it varies by kicker.”
The thing about @Visionman reading the article is, he has Carpenter, Evans and Tabor on ignore.
 

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