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Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Your 2014 Bears Training Camp/Roster Breakdown: Special Teams and Coaches

So now we reach the end. The special teams. The other third. Those guys that you usually ignore until they fuck up, at which point you're incensed because even though you get winded carrying groceries up the stairs you wonder aloud how hard it can be to cover a goddamn kick returner running a 4.3 forty. This year the Bears have actually had some unusual turnover on what has typically been a solid unit for them, with Devin Hester moving on, Adam Podlesh getting his walking papers, and, sigh, Patrick Mannelly retiring.

I haven't really addressed it yet so I'm just going to take a sidebar here to say goodbye to Mannelly. He was awesome, he was always great to fans on Twitter and in any other interaction (from what I've heard), he had great hair, and, most importantly, he was ruthlessly efficient at his job. The Bears may have more bad snaps this season than they've had since I was nine years old, and that would be true even if they had all of three of them all year. Pat never got it wrong. It was a joke of mine during the Jauron Era that the best player on the Bears was the long snapper, and while that's nothing for an organization to hang their hat on, at least in Pat's case it meant that he was one of the best in the league at what he did. I will miss him.

THE KICKERS:
#9 Robbie Gould
Yeah, there's just one. It's Robbie. He's great. If you don't think so, regardless of whether he missed that kick in Minnesota or not, you can rot. Robbie was actually accurate on a career high 89.7% of his kicks last year despite having his most attempts since 2006. That happens when your offense actually moves the ball, apparently. You get more kicks and stuff. It's great. He did miss an extra point though, so you know the end is nigh.

THE PUNTERS:
#16 Pat O'Donnell, #1 Tress Way
O'Donnell apparently launched a couple of punts the other day that were so impressive the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Bears fans know good punting, that's for sure. Still, the question will be which of Way and O'Donnell looks more impressive as a directional punter, regardless of how strong O'Donnell's leg is. I still assume Pat wins the job, though.