Bear Digest

Did Richard Hightower's Week 18 trickery rescue his job?

Analysis: With negative stats stacking up about Bears special teams production, it's safe to wonder if their coordinator retained his job through the fake punt return in Week 18.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears return man Josh Blackwell scores on the 94-yard punt return off a fake ordered by coordinator Richard Hightower.
Bears return man Josh Blackwell scores on the 94-yard punt return off a fake ordered by coordinator Richard Hightower. | William Glasheen USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

In days of yore, Muhammad Ali used to confound opponents by winning rounds with a late flurry of punches.

A round seemingly won by crafting tactically thrown punches suddenly would vanish for his opponents with his few late punches that stuck better in the memories of judges because they occurred more recently.

It would seem Richard Hightower has done this late-round magic as Bears special teams coordinator.
The team didn't officially announce it yet but Hightower was retained his role after they reportedly considered former Saints special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi. Rizzi landed in Denver.

Based on pure rankings, Hightower overall probably failed to get it done for three years. Rankings can be deceiving, however. There were enough accomplishments to convince Ben Johnson.

Former Dallas Morning News Cowboys writer Rick Gosselin started an overall special teams rankings system long ago that teams still use and it has been imitated elsewhere. He doesn't post his final rankings for the season until February, so the rankings for Hightower's 2024 teams must be filled in from elsewhere.

The overall rating in three seasons hasn't been strong but there have been enough parts there to like the efforts by Hightower's teams.

Gosselin, a Pro Football Hall of Fame McCann Award winner, had the Bears 24th for 2022, 22nd for 2023.

Lineups.com has a similar rating, awarding points for rankings in field goals made and attempts, opposing field goal made and attempts, extra points and opponents' extra points made and attempted, punts, punt returns and opposing returns and punts, as well as the similar situation with kicks. The Bears came through 2024 rated 30th in this system, or two from last.

Hightower's special teams have given the Bears the towel incident, when punter/place holder Trenton Gill took them out of field goal range with a 15-yard penalty for using a towel to mop up a soggy field. They didn't put the ball at the right hash marker this year for Cairo Santos to kick on his blocked field goal against Green Bay.

They had back-to-back blocked field goals this year.

Overall this year, they couldn't complain about Tory Taylor setting a team record for punting average and Cairo Santos setting and tying the record for most 50-yard-plus field goals in franchise history (7) each of the last two years. And they had three special teams players of the week. They also were the only team to block two punts, including one for a TD return.

All of that added together, it definitely did not hurt Hightower's cause when his team was one of five recovering an onside kick this year. More importantly, they pulled off the old Dave Toub-style fake punt return for a touchdown against Green Bay for a 7-0 lead in their 24-22 season-ending win.

Often special teams coordinators will stick around for multiple coaching staffs. Former Bears special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers has been with the Cardinals now through three head coaches.

That late flurry of punches in the form of a fake punt return couldn't have hurt Hightower's cause. Maybe it did ev

Hightower had never been one to gamble unnecessarily with fakes but threw out that classic fake return by DJ Moore and a 94-yard return by Josh Blackwell at Green Bay. You have to wonder how much impact it had in keeping his job, considering the lack of great overall special teams success over three years,

Now they can go about trying to improve the overall standings in special teams, a sore spot for three years and one that must improve.

That's because it was easy for special teams troubles to hide when the offense and defense were stumbling around looking even worse through an entire season. They don't plan on that happening again under coach Ben Johnson.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.