The Chicago Bears will be looking for their sixth win in the past seven games when they battle the New York Giants on Sunday afternoon. The Bears have overcome plenty of adversity over the first eight games to get where they are in the NFC playoff race, including a kicking dilemma that has dominated most of the first half of the season.
The decision between Jake Moody and Cairo Santos has fans torn, even if head coach Ben Johnson has put his support behind the incumbent veteran. But even as the drama has unfolded over the past two months, they’re not the only team having kicking issues.
The Giants are having their own kicking crisis as ESPN’s Jordan Raanan reported that starter Graham Gano wasn’t practicing on Friday due to a herniated disc in his neck. Giants head coach Brian Daboll also added that he assumed “it’s going to be Koo” when talking to reporters after practice, raising the possibility that the Bears' kicking issues could take center stage after passing on an opportunity to sign Koo earlier this season.
Bears Could Be Kicking Themselves on Sunday After Passing on Younghoe Koo
Koo’s season began with the Atlanta Falcons, but he was released after missing a potential 44-yard game-tying field goal with six seconds remaining in a season-opening loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At the same time, the Bears could have made a kicking change of their own, as costly mistakes by Santos played a role in their loss to the Minnesota Vikings.
Santos missed a 50-yard field goal at the beginning of the fourth quarter, which was a catalyst for the Vikings to score 21 unanswered points and take a 27-17 lead. When the Bears cut the lead to 27-24 on a Caleb Williams touchdown pass to star wideout Rome Odunze with 2:05 remaining, Santos was instructed by Johnson to kick the ball out of the back of the end zone so Chicago would have the two-minute warning and all three timeouts to stop the clock.
Santos’ leg couldn’t get the job done, however, and Ty Chandler took the ball out of the end zone, killing the two-minute warning and allowing the Vikings to run the clock down to 16 seconds before having to punt the ball away. At that moment, Johnson could have pulled the plug on Santos, whose struggles with deep kicks have been an issue for Chicago this season, going 2-for-4 beyond 50 yards.
But instead of signing Koo, who is a career 29-for-40 (72.5%) on 50-plus yard attempts, the Bears chose to stick with Santos as Koo signed with the Giants’ practice squad.
That move has been part of the Bears’ kicking controversy, but it became a full-blown crisis when Santos suffered a right thigh injury. That move prompted Chicago to sign Moody to the practice squad and eventually elevate him for two weeks in relief of the veteran. But Johnson has continued to stick with Santos, who has gone 5-of-7 (71.4%) on field goals, including a miss from 50-plus yards since returning from injury in Week 8.
Of course, Moody has his own flaws, connecting on just 71.4% of his field goals since making 84% during his rookie season with the San Francisco 49ers in 2023. But Moody has been at his best in Chicago, making 8-of-9 field goals with a long of 48 yards.
With the Bears struggling to decide between Santos and Moody, it could give Koo a chance to show them what they missed out on. While Koo’s has also declined over the past three seasons, with his field goal percentage dropping from 86.5% in 2023 to 73.5% in 2024, his leg, which has a career-long of 58 yards, could have been useful, considering the center of the Bears’ controversy is the strength of Santos’s leg.
It creates a situation where the Bears could be kicking themselves over their decision not to sign Koo and could throw a wrench into their plans to beat the Giants on Sunday.