Chicago Bears: This UDFA could make an immediate impact in 2023

The Chicago Bears are coming off a hectic NFL draft that saw the team select 10 players. A total of 6 different positions were taken during this process, in an aim to create a deeper roster than what the team had put together in 2022.

The biggest offseason event is now over, but the roster building is just getting started. The Bears have a lot of holes to fill, so it’s going to take more than just this year’s draft picks to fill them. With the bulk of this free agent class already signed, the front office will now turn to undrafted free agents (UDFAs) to occupy the remaining holes.

These players typically only get a single summer to prove themselves to whatever team signs them. Only a select few UDFAs across the league make it past the preseason, and even fewer make an impact on Sundays.

With that being said, the Bears are no strangers to giving undrafted players the opportunity to fulfill their dream. Just this past season, the Bears gave UDFA LB Jack Sanborn his chance. It paid off for both parties, as Sanborn turned out to be a playmaker in multiple phases of the game.

So, who will be the next Jack Sanborn? Only time will tell, but recent signee Andre Szmyt is going to give this opportunity all he’s got.

Andre Szmyt was a 4-star kicking prospect out of Vernon Hills (Illinois) High School. An impressive feat considering Szmyt only played for the Cougars his senior season. After weighing his options, Szmyt committed to play football for Syracuse University in 2018. This is where he would kick for the next 5 seasons.

Over that time, Szmyt was successful on 81% of his field goal attempts, which was good enough to earn him All-America honors and a Lou Groza award. He finished his career strong, going 20-26 on field goals and a perfect 40-40 on extra points in his senior season.

Even though Szmyt was viewed as one of the top draft eligible kickers, he ended up going undrafted. He wasn’t unemployed for long though. The Bears viewed him as a priority free agent, calling and eventually agreeing to terms with Szmyt just hours after the draft.

But why is any of this important? Kickers are brought in to compete every offseason, and hardly any of them end up actually making a long-term impact. So why is this different?

Currently, veteran journeyman Cairo Santos holds the keys to the kicking job in Chicago. Santos has been a productive kicker in the NFL for nearly a decade. His statistics have always been respectable, but his leg strength is what’s made him a journeyman.

For his career, Santos has only connected on 79.4% of field goals between 40-49 yards. That number dips to an abysmal 51.8% when attempting a kick of 50 yards or more.

Having the ability to connect on longer field goals is just as important as being able to connect on the shorter ones. Football games can be won and lost on a single play, so the quality of a team’s kicker can often make or break a game. We’ve seen promising Bears seasons go up in flames due to inconsistent kicker play before (Yes, I went there).

I expect this kicking battle to be as entertaining as any this offseason. Both kickers are talented in their own right, but at the end of the day, the leg that proves most consistent this summer will be attached to the starting kicker of the Chicago Bears in 2023.