It’s difficult to convey just how big the field goal by Eddy Pineiro was in Denver. The Chicago Bears had spent the previous eight months tortured by their past. A team that saw Super Bowl dreams crushed because their kicker, Cody Parkey, couldn’t deliver a 43-yard field goal at home in favorable weather conditions. It led to many wondering if this team could ever find a kicker they could trust to deliver a game when it mattered. Head coach Matt Nagy understood the gravity of the situation.
That’s why the team did everything humanly possible to find that guy. They scoured the landscape for options. At the start of rookie minicamps in May, the team had signed or invited no less than nine kickers to tryouts. Many were rookies coming out of college while others like Elliott Fry were veterans who hadn’t been able to crack an NFL roster yet. The Bears’ task was simple. They were going to weed out the weak. They used any and every trick in the book to test the mental fortitude of those kickers.
In the end, only Fry survived long enough to reach training camp. He would be joined by Pineiro who was acquired via trade from Oakland. The two would battle it out for the next month, enduring ever more creative tests from the Bears coaching staff. It was close, but the team decided after two preseason games that Pineiro was their guy in spite of his lacking experience. It was felt his strong leg and self-confidence were key factors to having success in Chicago.
Fast forward to Denver, and all of that would be put to the test. It was a 53-yard attempt with one second left in the game. If he missed, the Bears would leave town 0-2 and in dire straights. Pineiro delivered and the entire team exploded with jubilance. None more so than their head coach.
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Matt Nagy looked like a man venting months of tension
It’s written all over the man’s face. Utter joy mixed with a generous amount of relief. This was a man tortured by kicker problems last season. Parkey missed 11 kicks in total in 2018. The Philadelphia one wasn’t the only game-winner he flubbed either. There was another overtime boot in Miami that cost the Bears a win. One that would’ve helped them avoid playing a wild card playoff game to begin with. Pineiro wiped away those nightmares with one swing of the leg.
The young kicker has since won NFC Special Teams Player of the Week honors. Well-deserved for his performance in that game. Not just for the winning kick, but the two other field goals he delivered during the action as well. It genuinely feels like the Bears finally found their guy. Now they can focus on the business of winning football games.
