The Chicago Bears are expected to sign kicker Jake Moody to the practice squad, days after kicker Cairo Santos failed to boot a ball through the end zone that potentially could have swung Monday night’s game.
The San Francisco 49ers released Moody on Tuesday after he went 1-for-3 on field-goal attempts, including a miss from 27 yards, in a Week 1 win over the Seattle Seahawks.
The Bears, meanwhile, hope a change of scenery could do Moody some good. The move also adds a kicker to the locker room just days after Santos missed a 50-yard field-goal try. The final kickoff in Monday’s loss to the Minnesota Vikings was a point of conversation too.
Trailing by three points with 2 minutes, 2 seconds remaining, coach Ben Johnson directed Santos to boot the kickoff through the end zone. The thinking was that a touchback would result in no time coming off the clock, and the Bears could use the two-minute warning to their advantage.
Santos, however, didn’t hit the ball flush, and his kick came up 3 yards shy of the end line. The Vikings returned it into the field of play and ate up precious seconds.
Johnson later noted that he should’ve asked Santos to kick the ball out of bounds. Santos, too, took the blame for the short kick.
“So ultimately, that was on me for not doing what I believed that I could have,” Santos told the Tribune. “And also on the team to realize that we probably didn’t do the best option on that particular play.”
Even with the addition of Moody to the practice squad, Santos remains on the 53-man roster and has $3.1 million fully guaranteed on his contract for this season.
Despite the miss Monday, Santos is the most accurate field-goal kicker in franchise history. His 88.8% (135-for-152) conversion rate is better than even Robbie Gould’s 85.4% as a member of the Bears. Santos is 21-for-29 over his career with the Bears on kicks from 50 yards and beyond. Santos has been with the Bears since 2020 after a two-game stint in 2017.
Moody, 25, comes to the Bears after some notable struggles early in his career. The 49ers made a bold decision when they selected Moody out of Michigan with a third-round pick — at No. 99 — in the 2023 draft. That was the highest a kicker had been drafted since 2016.
The results, however, were mixed. Moody made 74.2% (46-for-62) of his field-goal attempts in San Francisco. He was 6-for-12 on kicks from 50 yards and beyond, with a career-long of 57. After a promising rookie season, he struggled last year, making just 70.6% of his field-goal attempts.
The bad start in Week 1 proved to be the final straw in San Francisco. The 49ers have since signed former Bears kicker Eddy Piñeiro.