It's certainly been an interesting 2025 campaign for Chicago Bears kicker Cairo Santos, but he was able to overcome some adversity to land himself a massive compliment from his coach.
Santos is coming off a game where he was called upon to nail a game-winning field goal to take down the Minnesota Vikings 19-17. He finished the game converting four of five field goals in the victory.
Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower was asked about Santos' play overall. Hightower only needed three words to describe Santos.
“Resilient, clutch and dependable.”
Would Bears fans agree with that assessment from Hightower?
It was not a great start to the season for Santos in the opener against the Vikings at home. He missed a 50-yard field goal that could have helped the Bears early in the fourth quarter and then had a bad kickoff that gave Minnesota good field position late in the contest as Chicago lost 27-24.
Santos would go on to be perfect on his field goals after that, until a lower leg injury kept him out. His replacement, Jake Moody, was making his own game-winning field goals, but that didn't stop Bears head coach Ben Johnson from sticking with Santos as the main kicker.
Since returning to the starting kicker role, Santos has not been the same as he was at the beginning of the season. He's missed at least one field goal in three of his last four games.
Overall for the season, Santos has made 16 of his 20 field goals and converted all 21 of his extra points. He's had two misses of 40-49 yards and 50+ yards each. His touchback percentage of 18.2% is ranked 15th in the NFL and is higher than the 17.3% league average.
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Bears fans can interpret those numbers however they want, but at least he is making the field goals that count the most. It would be nice for him to avoid any more misses the rest of the season.