BOURBONNAIS — When Panthers backup Joey Slye made a 55-yard field goal against the Bears on Thursday night, Eddy Pineiro wondered whether his coach had a wandering eye.
Pineiro knows that he and Elliott Fry are competing with each other — but also with every other potential free agent and trade target — for the Bears’ starting kicker job. But still, to see it in person at Soldier Field?
“That kinda sucks,” he said after the final training camp practice at Olivet Nazarene University on Sunday. “You sit there and go, ‘Damn, he just banged a 55-yarder.’
“You’re looking at the coaches and are like, ‘Oh, don’t think of anything.’”
The Bears haven’t yet. But there’s plenty of preseason left.
Pineiro and Fry started training camp on fire and were the feel-good story of “Family Fest” at Soldier Field. They’ve cooled off since. Fry missed three kicks Sunday, while Pineiro missed two.
Pineiro finished training camp 47-for 56, while Fry went 48-for-59.
“We both have gotta be better,” Fry said.
The Bears have said they wouldn’t hesitate to make a move — either on waivers after cut day or via a trade — should Pineiro and Fry underwhelm before Week 1.
A trade might have become the more likely option Sunday when Chandler Catanzaro retired and left the Jets with a gaping hole at placekicker. The Jets have the NFL’s third waiver position this offseason, so they would get their choice of kickers waived on cut day long before the Bears do at No. 24. A trade, then, would be the only way for the Bears to guarantee an upgrade.
Targets aren’t hard to find. Of the six NFL kickers that scored at least 10 points in Week 1 of preseason games, three are on the wrong side of their own kicking derby.
Or, rather, three were.
On Sunday afternoon, the Vikings traded a reported fifth-round pick for the Ravens’ Kaare Vedvik. Stuck behind the great Justin Tucker, Vedvik made all four field goals he tried Thursday, with the longest coming from 55 yards out. Tack on two extra points, and his 14 points were the most among any NFL kicker.
While the Bears are working the margins looking for a kicker, credit the Vikings for making a bold trade. He figures to replace veteran Dan Bailey, who made 21-of-28 attempts last season. Cody Parkey’s 76.7 field goal percentage was only slightly better than Bailey — though his last miss was a catastrophic one.
Playing behind Graham Gano, Slye went 3-for-3 on field goals, including a 55-yarder, and made two extra points on Thursday. The Colts’ Cole Hedlund, who is competing with the ageless (yet also 46 years old) Adam Vinatieri, went 3-for-4 on field goals with a long of 44.
Pineiro went 1-for-2 in the preseason opener, hooking a 48-yarder and making a 23-yarder. Fry made the Parkey kick — 43 yards, into the north end zone, after a timeout — in his only attempt.
“It’s not just me vs. Elliott — it’s me vs. all 32 teams,” Pineiro said. “You’re competing against everybody. It’s not just us. I’m pretty sure there are other guys doing well right now. …
“The best thing I can do to answer that question is, ‘Make all my field goals and try to do the best I can so that won’t happen.’ But it is what it is. Whatever happens, happens. I understand that it’s a business.”
Pineiro put it simply — “Do good or you’re gonna get cut,” he said — while Fry said he’s not thinking about the league’s other kickers.
“You gotta focus on what you can control,” Fry said. “It’s one of those things where if you come in and make kicks, you shouldn’t have a problem.”
Do the Bears have a problem yet?
More than seven months after Parkey’s double-doink, their unconventional approach to finding Parkey’s replacement has yet to produce an answer.
Rather than sign a proven veteran, they had nine kickers try out during rookie minicamp. When they weren’t pleased with the result, they traded a conditional seventh-round pick to the Raiders for Pineiro.
Earlier in the offseason, they talked to retired Colts punter Pat McAfee about kicking field goals. He told the “Dan Patrick Show” on Friday that he would have done it, too, had his right knee not swelled up in an airplane when he was flying home from the workout.
The team, antithetically, has said it wants to develop an inexpensive kicker, considering they owe $4.062 million in dead cap money because of Parkey.
Nagy said Pineiro and Fry will be judged by their performance in preseason games. That doesn’t make the practice struggles any easier.
“I have to catch myself, and I’m sure you guys do, too,” Nagy told the assembled media. “We expect them to make every single kick that they kick. And if they don’t, we go back to the shoulder shrug. Because of our expectations. What’s real is that there’s not a kicker in the world who makes every single kick. So we’re just trying to balance that. And I think the true test will be in the preseason. …
“We’re going to have to make that decision as to where we’re at and what we want to do with them. And so and it’s only one preseason game, so I want to wait a little bit.”
