Les Grossman
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The Bears released Parkey in March; they will pay more to have him off the roster ($3.5 million) than if they he played this year. Thus, they’re looking for a kicker who is good and cheap. But the size of the group they initially brought in suggested less a kicker competition and more the formation of a K-pop band: nine kickers in all, six rookies and three veteran free agents. (And zero NFL games among them.)
“Nine guys is ridiculous!” says Mike Westhoff, a long-time special teams coordinator for the Jets and Saints. “It’s not that I wouldn’t look at nine guys—I would—but I wouldn’t look at nine guys in a pile. That makes it a sham.”
Adam Vinatieri, the Colts’ likely Hall of Fame kicker, is 46 and entering his 24th NFL season. He says the most competitors he ever faced in training camp was four, before his rookie season in New England. He reflects for a moment, then chuckles. “Nine guys? I don’t know... ”
Normally, kickers—like all the specialists—spend camp toiling in seclusion and, often, relative anonymity. It was immediately clear this wouldn’t be the case in Lake Forest. During his first meeting with the 80-something rookies, coach Matt Nagy introduced himself and his staff, then cued up a video. Highlights from Chicago’s wildly successful 2018 season flashed across the screen to a rap beat . . . until the 43-yard miss and the aftermath. The team mascot, Staley, falls to the ground. Parkey hangs his head. All-Pro defensive tackle Akiem Hicks looks around, confused. Nagy’s mouth is open in shock, his face frozen, his eyes darting back and forth as if searching for an alternative ending.
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Jamie Kohl, a well-known independent kicking coach, joined the team as a consultant to help Tabor narrow the search. The two charted field goals and recorded extra data like apex, ball speed, distance traveled and launch angle using TrackMan, a radar system widely used by pro golfers to analyze their swings. (Chicago is the first NFL team to use it to evaluate kickers.) After encountering it at a kicking camp earlier in the spring, Tabor reached out to the company to rent the system and two TrackMan employees to manage the complicated software for the Bears’ three-day camp.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/08/21/c...l&utm_campaign=themmqb&utm_source=twitter.com
“Nine guys is ridiculous!” says Mike Westhoff, a long-time special teams coordinator for the Jets and Saints. “It’s not that I wouldn’t look at nine guys—I would—but I wouldn’t look at nine guys in a pile. That makes it a sham.”
Adam Vinatieri, the Colts’ likely Hall of Fame kicker, is 46 and entering his 24th NFL season. He says the most competitors he ever faced in training camp was four, before his rookie season in New England. He reflects for a moment, then chuckles. “Nine guys? I don’t know... ”
Normally, kickers—like all the specialists—spend camp toiling in seclusion and, often, relative anonymity. It was immediately clear this wouldn’t be the case in Lake Forest. During his first meeting with the 80-something rookies, coach Matt Nagy introduced himself and his staff, then cued up a video. Highlights from Chicago’s wildly successful 2018 season flashed across the screen to a rap beat . . . until the 43-yard miss and the aftermath. The team mascot, Staley, falls to the ground. Parkey hangs his head. All-Pro defensive tackle Akiem Hicks looks around, confused. Nagy’s mouth is open in shock, his face frozen, his eyes darting back and forth as if searching for an alternative ending.
...
Jamie Kohl, a well-known independent kicking coach, joined the team as a consultant to help Tabor narrow the search. The two charted field goals and recorded extra data like apex, ball speed, distance traveled and launch angle using TrackMan, a radar system widely used by pro golfers to analyze their swings. (Chicago is the first NFL team to use it to evaluate kickers.) After encountering it at a kicking camp earlier in the spring, Tabor reached out to the company to rent the system and two TrackMan employees to manage the complicated software for the Bears’ three-day camp.
...
https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/08/21/c...l&utm_campaign=themmqb&utm_source=twitter.com