Kicker search ends with Pineiro
Hunt for successor to ‘double-doink’ Parkey took several months
LAKE FOREST, ILL.— The Chicago Bears’ kicking competition is over, for now, with Eddy Pineiro the winner.
The Bears announced Sunday that Elliott Fry was released after an off-season and pre-season competition with Pineiro and several other kickers to replace Cody Parkey.
“I feel like I’ve done well,” Pineiro said. “I feel like I’ve kicked well. … I feel like I’m a completely different kicker.”
The Bears had been looking for a kicker since cutting Parkey following his “double-doink” field goal miss of 43 yards in their 16-15 playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Coach Matt Nagy said Pineiro had not necessarily won the job for the regular season opener against Green Bay on Sept. 5.
“I want (players) to have the mentality that Eddy is going to be that guy, but we’re getting to that point right now where you’re getting toward the end of the training camps where there’s going to be transactions for a lot of different teams at a lot of different positions,” Nagy said. “So if we feel like something is best for the Bears, that’s what we’ll do.”
Nagy said it was a good time to make the decision between the two because it gives Pineiro a chance to prove himself before final roster cutdowns by other teams put more kickers on the market.
“Human nature is whenever there’s two people for one spot, No. 1, every rep is getting cut in half and then mentally you just don’t know,” Nagy said. “Now there’s a little more clarity.
“Again, it wasn’t easy because they were very close. But that’s what we decided to do. We’re rolling forward with that and now he has two games here to show us what he can do.”
Pineiro saw the benefits of the move.
“The way I look at it, I feel like I haven’t won the competition,” Pineiro said. “Everything’s still open. Who knows if they bring somebody else in?
“But it does give me a confidence boost, like OK, I have a shot to be the guy and prove to the coaches that I can be the guy that they want me to be. So yeah, I feel a lot more confident.”
Fry was among the first kickers the Bears brought in. At one point, they had nine trying out at Halas Hall in the off-season.