The Bears special teams was not quite special this season. The biggest issue, obviously was kicker.
Anytime you have three kickers attempting a kick in a season, you have kicker issues. The team started with Connor Barth, and did not go over too well. Barth was 17-17 from extra points, but was 11-16 when it comes to field goals. Add in a missed game winner, and Barth was out of the door by week 10.
In comes Cairo Santos. Santos hit 1-2 when it came to field goals, and 2-2 in extra points. However, after two games with the Bears, he wound up on the injured reserve. From there, Mike Nugent. Nugent finished out the season with the team and 4-4. However, in a weird turn of events, he ended up 7-9 in extra points. Overall, the team went 26-28 on extra points and 16-22 on field goals. Needless to say it could have gone better.
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Pat O’Donnell was the punter, and while there was only one of him, he did not set the punting world ablaze. O’Donnell averaged 47 yards per punt. Still, he finished 21st in net yardage, 19th in punts inside the 20, 24th in fair catches, fifth in touchbacks, and second in yardage allowed. Hardly pinning teams inside the 20, while having a lot of punts go for touchbacks is a bad look.
In the return game, Tarik Cohen has 29 punt returns, for 272 yards and a touchdown and 26 kick returns for 583 yards. Eddie Jackson added in two punt returns for six yards, and Bryce Callahan has a 59 yard punt return. Deonte Thompson returned 11 kicks for 229 yards and Benny Cunningham brought back seven for 147.