DENVER — Before the Bears’ special-teamers took Eddy Pineiro to a South American restaurant in Highwood for his birthday Friday, they brought a piñata into the
Halas Hall locker room. With snapper Patrick Scales suspending it in the air, players took their hacks at the piñata, which was procured by punter Pat O’Donnell, and had a special meaning.
It was shaped like a bronco.
Pineiro did the football equivalent with one second to play Sunday. The rookie kicker drilled a 53-yard field goal as time expired to stun the Broncos 16-14.
Having faced months of questions about their kicker situation — the Bears cut Cody Parkey after his playoff double-doink, held a nine-player kicker derby in rookie minicamp and traded for Pineiro the next day — the Bears finally found some finality.
And a win.
“This was an emotional kick,”
Pineiro said. “From all the stuff that I’ve been through and the whole kicking situation, the ‘Augusta silence.’ Do we have a kicker? Do we not have a kicker? And the media and everybody just piling in. It was an amazing moment.”
Well, do the Bears have their kicker?
“I think they do, yeah,” said Pineiro, who made kicks from 40 and 52 yards in the first half.
After Pineiro was mobbed by his teammates on the field — “Everybody was slapping me and screaming,” he said — he took part in his first “Club Dub” locker-room celebration. He donned a cowboy hat, part of the wardrobe players wore for the theme road trip, and danced.
“Usually scouts, when they look at players like DBs or wide receivers or any skill position, you want to see if that particular player has that ‘dog’ in him, meaning, that raw, doesn’t care, going to go up and compete,” cornerback Prince Amukamara said. “All throughout training camp and OTAs, we’ve seen that in him.”
Running back Tarik Cohen was more blunt.
“He’s got that [bleep]-it mentality,” Cohen said. “He feels like it’s just another kick.”
BRB watching this on repeat all week. @EddyPineiro FTW!#CHIvsDEN | #Bears100 pic.twitter.com/95Fk9EnRTr
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) September 15, 2019
