Eddy Pineiro's first order of business this offseason was to put on some weight.
When the Chicago Bears kicker met with coaches at the end of his rookie year, their request was for him to bulk up and get stronger in the weight room.
Pineiro, who has gone from 179 pounds to 187, has worked out five days a week in a Miami gym since facilities have reopened. He also trains at a park a few times a week with Bears punter/holder Pat O'Donnell as he readies for the sequel to the kicking competition.
It probably won't be as odd as last year's competition, when the Bears started with eight kickers at rookie minicamp. They then traded for Pineiro from the Oakland Raiders to compete with two others during the offseason program before it was just Pineiro and Elliott Fry at training camp.
Pineiro, of course, won and kicked in all 16 games last season, going 23-for-28 on field goals and 27-for-29 on extra points. But the Bears brought in former Nevada kicker Ramiz Ahmed to push him this offseason.
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He hasn't gotten to know Ahmed aside from a couple of Zoom meetings together. But his competitor's arrival wasn't surprising.
"As far as them signing him, I obviously expected it," Pineiro said. "Everybody has to compete. That's just part of that."
Pineiro said his biggest challenge as a rookie was learning how to kick in varying conditions, from the often-tricky wind patterns of Soldier Field to kicking indoors in Detroit or Minnesota.
His 2019 highlights include hitting the 53-yard winner in Week 2 against the Broncos and making all 18 of his kicks (nine field goals, nine extra points) in his final five games of the season. But during a midseason slump, he missed six kicks in a span of five games, including the potential winning 41-yarder against the Chargers wide left, with a right-to-left wind blowing.
And so part of his offseason has been meeting O'Donnell at the most wide-open, windiest park he knows to practice in unpredictable conditions.
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"Me and Pat don't just go in and just kick some balls _ we kind of have a set game plan," Pineiro said. "'Like, 'OK, we're going to do this last-second field goal at the end of practice' or 'We're going to manipulate the wind or hit the ball this way for it to go this way.' Stuff like that. We work on a lot of details. ... We're going to kick more kicks on the left hash and kick more kicks on the right hash, just different scenarios. We try to put ourselves in the most in-game, real situations as we possibly can."
Pineiro also took part in the Bears virtual offseason that featured guest speakers recruited by coach Matt Nagy.
"This is great because for our position all of this is mental," Pineiro said. "I think I've mentally gotten a lot stronger through these Zoom meetings, talking to some guys that they have had come in. In that aspect, me personally, it's helped me a lot."
Nagy said he loved the way Pineiro handled the kicking competition last year and thinks another one should help to push the 24-year-old.
"We always want competition," Nagy said. "Any time somebody feels like that they just have a spot locked in for certain reasons, then I don't know how great that is. ... (Last year) wasn't easy. And we tried (to make it that way) on purpose _ with the kicking challenges and competitions that we had. But he pulled through that. That's the silver lining. At the same time, let's make sure that he understands, and we understand, that the more pressure situations, the more experience that he gets, it'll help us and help him down the road."
What exactly Nagy and special teams coordinator Chris Tabor have in store for this round of the kicking competition remains to be seen. Last year, Nagy used "Augusta Silence" _ bringing practice to a silent halt as a kicker attempts a field goal _ as one tactic. That idea might be beneficial this year, especially if teams think they might be playing in empty stadiums.
"That's how it was in practice _ nobody talking, nobody screaming," Pineiro said. "It was a little awkward, a little weird. But if that does happen, I'll be ready for it because we did a lot of that last year."
