Chicago Bears Top 100: #94 Brad Maynard

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We’re heading into the dog days of the offseason, counting the days until the Chicago Bears 2014 season kicks off.  Thanks to contributor and the fine editor of Blackhawk Up Keith Schultz’s suggestion, we’re going to do a Top 1oo list of the all time Chicago Bears.  It’s a fun way to pass the time and take a stroll down memory lane.

Next up in our countdown of the Top 100 Chicago Bears of all time at #94 is punter Brad Maynard.  Yes, I put a punter on the list.  What, punters are people too.  Maynard was selected by the New York Giants in the third round of the 1997 NFL Draft.  He set a record for punts and punting yards as a rookie.  After a solid 4-year career with the Giants, the Bears snatched him up as a free agent.

The Bears signed Maynard as a free agent from the New York Giants in 2001, where he went on to play 1o seasons with the Chicago Bears.  During his Bears career, Maynard punted 878 times for 36,781 yards.  That’s nearly 20 miles worth of punts.  Maynard enjoyed his best season as a Bear in 2006, coincidentally a Super Bowl season, when he punted for an average of 44.2 yards.

Maynard was known to pull off an occasional trick play in his time with the Bears.  He is 5 for 7 for 94 yards and two TD’s.  That’s good for a passer rating of 153.3.  Not too shabby.  One of his best known TD’s is a pass to Brian Urlacher that helped the Bears beat the Washington Redskins back in 2001.  Check out this clip and hang to the very end to see the play:

Maynard enjoyed a lot of success under Bears special teams coach Dave Toub but some philosophical differences led to the Bears letting him go in 2011.  He spent the 2011 season in Cleveland before calling it a career.

What do you think of the ranking?  Too high?  Too low?  I guess you’ll have to check back to see who finished ahead of him to judge for yourself.  We’ll be counting down a different person each day as we inch our way to the September

7th season opener

.