After three days of rookie mini-camp practices at Halas Hall, the elephant remains to be within the room.
Bears coach Matt Nagy deserves credit score for his open embrace of the seek for a kicker following the Cody Parkey failure. It’s an unorthodox, unwieldy, awkward course of that has been known as a carnival and a circus. But Nagy’s transparency at the very least made the primary stage of that course of bearable if not entertaining. Just suppose what a catastrophe it could have been underneath John Fox.
Be that as it might, the rookie mini-camp kicking derby over the weekend underscored the issue of the duty greater than it recognized an final winner. Casey Bednarski, a tryout kicker from Minnesota State-Mankato through the College of DuPage, unofficially was the weekend kicking derby “winner” after hitting from 32, 43 and 48 yards in a area objective kick-off towards Redford Jones in entrance of teammates on the finish of follow Sunday. Jones hit from 32 and 43 yards however was large left from 48.
But from a distance, the group of eight was fairly tightly bunched. Elliott Fry, Chris Blewitt and Spencer Evans arguably have been closest to Bednarski. But even when any person else’s record contains John Baron, Justin Yoon, Emmit Carpenter and Jones, no person took such an enormous step ahead to be thought of the front-runner — and even appear like a greater possibility than Matt Bryant or the most effective veteran kickers possible accessible previous to the beginning of the season.
Casey Bednarski hit 40-of-50 area objective makes an attempt at Minnesota State-Mankato, together with a 63-yarder. He performed two seasons on the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. Bednarski was one among eight place-kickers who participated within the Bears’ rookie mini-camp Friday-Sunday at Halas Hall. | Minnesota State-Mankato picture
On the opposite, at this level it stays to be seen if the Bears’ kicker towards the Packers in Week 1 is even on the roster.
“A great question,” Nagy stated. “I feel strongly that it will happen, but I don’t know. There’s so many things that can go on between now and the start of the season that I wish I could tell you I knew this was going to happen. But I really, honestly don’t have an answer for you on that.”
It solely will get harder from right here because the Bears need to whittle the competitors for OTAs — May 21-23, May 29-31 and June 4-7 — earlier than the veteran mini-camp June 11-13. How many kickers will take part in OTAs? Even that was a tricky query Sunday. “Anywhere from two to three maybe — four, who knows?” Nagy stated. “It depends on what we see, what we decide on. But if it’s four, then it’s going to be close — we have to juggle how we want to work that with reps.”
Nagy seems comfy having a rookie kicker on a group anticipated to make the playoffs. That could possibly be a quandary in itself. Last yr the Vikings dumped rookie kicker Daniel Carlson — a fifth-round draft decide — after two video games in favor of veteran Dan Bailey as a result of they have been in win-now mode. Carlson resurfaced with the Raiders and made 16-of-17 area objectives, together with 3-of-Three from 50-plus yards.
But do the win-now Bears have the time to permit a kicker to develop if it involves that? If Elliott Fry or Casey Bednarski or any of the eight mini-camp kickers struggles early, the strain can be immense. That’s obtained to be a part of the choice as effectively. How affected person can the Bears afford to be?
“There’s certainly going to be a growth factor with anyone that doesn’t have experience,” Nagy stated. “But there’s groups on the market which have gone into the playoffs with kickers with no expertise which have made huge kicks. You simply don’t know that till they’ve the chance.
“And it’s not truthful to those rookie gamers to say, ‘Well, you can’t be our kicker since you’ve by no means had an opportunity earlier than.’ But then, with that comes criticism that you simply went with a younger kicker. So that’s a steadiness.”
In different phrases, this saga is way from over. As diligent because the Bears have been in correcting an error, that is…