By Jordan Long
Cuts for NFL teams are never easy to get down to the magical number of 53. The Chicago Bears made a perplexing move. They decided to cut long-time kicker Robbie Gould. Gould was the Bears kicker the last 11 years and scheduled to earn $3 million this year. This will save them $2.4 million against the cap. The replacement for Gould is Connor Barth. What kind of decision is this?
Gould is the Bears all-time leader in terms of points scored with 1,207. He has been accurate throughout his NFL career. Gould is 276 of 323 in field goals with a percentage of 85.4%. Gould has a strong leg and can hit the 50+ yard field goals. He is 23 of 31, good for 74.2% with a long of 58 yards in kicks over 50 yards. Last season he was 33 of 39 in field goals with a long for 55 yards and hit 28 of 29 extra point tries. Gould didn’t miss a lot extra of points making 98.9% of them. On kickoffs Gould’s average start for the opposition is the 21.9-yard line making it a long field for the rival.
This is a money saving move. Connor Barth isn’t a bad kicker, but he isn’t Robbie Gould. Barth is 139 of 164 in kicks or 84.8 percent. That is a slim difference of 0.6 percentage of field goals made. Barth is more accurate on extra points with 174 of them made out of 175. Barth’s longest field goal is 57 yards. The Bears are not giving up that much in terms of distance.
The biggest difference between the two is making 50+ field goals. Barth has only made 64% of field goals from 50 yards or longer. If he misses those kicks this season, the opponents will have great field position to start a drive.
I don’t understand the move. This is all because they want to save money. If Barth fails to make kicks, fans might wish they could have Robbie Gould back and Barth might be out of a job. The Bears are taking huge a risk. I hope it works out for them. If it doesn’t people will wonder about the decision to release Robbie Gould.
What do you think of the Chicago Bears cutting Robbie Gould and signing Connor Barth?
Leave a Reply