Bears kicker candidates facing up to camp pressures
BOURBONNAIS, ILL. >> Linebacker Roquan Smith had just witnessed kicker Elliott Fry make a 60-yard field goal Saturday in the Chicago Bears’ kicking competition.
“That was pretty exciting,” Smith said. “You don’t have many guys hitting a 60-yarder. It’s pretty sweet.”
Then Eddy Pineiro made everyone forget the 60-yarder by making a 63yard field goal at Sunday’s practice.
When training camp began, coach Matt Nagy suggested the kicking competition might resemble a free-throw contest at a basketball camp. It actually has been more like a tennis match, with one player trying to hold serve one day and the other trying the next day, as the Bears seek to end a kicking problem lingering from Cody Parkey’s double-doink miss in the playoffs.
“Everybody knows that we’ve got to get this thing right,” Nagy said. “The kickers know that. We’ve been very honest with them on where we’re at going about this thing.
“I think when you’re honest with them, there’s no surprises. And it’s on them. It’s not anybody else but them to make it and produce.”
Fry is the accurate former South Carolina and Alliance of American Football kicker who signed as an undrafted free agent. The Bears spent a seventh-round pick to acquire strong-legged Pineiro from the Oakland Raiders after an extensive offseason search that once saw nine kickers trying field goals at Halas Hall.
The kicking format at camp is unusual.
Instead of alternating kickers each practice attempt, Nagy gives each kicker the full day to try a series of field goals in the middle of practice under a simulated kick rush. They might also get a few more attempts during two-minute drills. The other kicker sits that day.
One day it was Fry making all but one kick and drilling a 60-yarder, then the next day Pineiro missed just once and chose to move it back 3 yards for his 63-yarder.
On Monday, Fry tried in conditions the Bears will find difficult to duplicate for Pineiro. He kicked in the rain on a wet field and made 6 of 8, with one miss coming when he slipped badly and fell while trying a 51-yarder. Fry then got up and made a 51-yarder.
“I love it,” Pineiro said. “I think alternate days is awesome. It gives the whole day for that person and just that person instead of going one-andone, one-and-one.”
Fry finds the day when he doesn’t kick is a benefit.
“I think No. 1 it lets us kind of rest our legs,” Fry said. “That’s a big deal with kickers, making sure you’re fresh every day.
“But I think just like not having confusion and getting some rhythm kind of going where you know that today’s your day, just like it would be in a game. You know you’re not going to be in the season splitting reps between someone. It’s going to be your day and you’re going to go for it.”