In the middle of their Tuesday minicamp practice, the Bears ran their three kickers on the field and had each try a 42-yard field goal.
The first hit the right upright. The second went wide left, the third wide right.
“They went back-to-back-to-back and all three missed,” Bears coach Matt Nagy said. “And so they are being evaluated not just by you, not just by me, but by their teammates.”
And the 25 or so Bears alumni — including Mike Brown, Mike Adamle and others — who watched the first mandatory minicamp practice.
Chris Blewitt, Elliott Fry and Eddy Piñeiro’s performance left Nagy sounding rattled.
“I mean, that’s about as real as it gets,” Nagy said,. “They were 0-for-3 out there. For today, we can’t have that. We are going to figure this thing out. But 0-for-3 today, no good.”
Not at all. As the Bears continue to eschew adding an experienced kicker, it will be telling to see whether they bring all three of theirs — combined regular-season games: zero — to training camp next month. Nagy and special teams coordinator Chris Tabor haven’t ruled out cutting someone — or no one — before the truck leaves for Bourbonnais.
“For us as evaluators if they all went 3-for-3 today, we wouldn’t be talking about it, right?” Nagy said. “But at the same time, what’s real is they didn’t. And that’s why we are talking about kickers in this situation, because we miss.
“We have to just keep trusting our evaluation of these three kickers. It’s not just one person, it’s all of us together. We talk it through and we figure it out. And we do everything we possibly can to make sure that in the end when we get to the very end, we have the right guy there.”
After Tuesday, it’s fair to wonder whether they do. Nagy practically winced when reporters asked what went through his head.
“Whatever went through your mind,” he said, “went through my mind.”
