Bear Digest

Fixing Daniel Hardy's mistake and other Bears special teams snafus

Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower pointed out some of the obvious and not-so-obvious mistakes Sunday and what they're doing to fix it all.
Gene Chamberlain|
Cairo Santos' opening kickoff went to the wrong place, and a game of special teams mistakes had begun.
Cairo Santos' opening kickoff went to the wrong place, and a game of special teams mistakes had begun. | Katie Stratman-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Special teams rarely gets extensive public scrutiny, with the possible exception of times when something goes terribly wrong.

It did Sunday, and the Bears, and special teams coordinator Richard Hightower stood up Thursday to take his own blame in last week's special teams fiasco at Cincinnati.

 “I will bust my ass, and they will, too, all right, to get it cleaned up," Hightower promised about himself and players.

It's a lot of cleaning up to do.

Then again, Hightower wasn't the one who couldn't cover a kick, who allowed a blocked field goal, committed a special teams penalty or let an onside kick strike his foot when he shouldn't even have been around the ball.

"Obviously, they look in the mirror and take responsibility for what they do but I tell them, I take responsibility for it and there's gotta be better but … we found a way to win," Hightower said Thursday at Halas Hall. "We've found a way to win several different ways this year and going forward if we want to be the team that we want to be, we've got to get those things cleaned up."

The cleanup needs to be pervasive to match those breakdowns.

Better health can help

Better health for the team could help. The special teams have played all season without linebacker Amen Ogbongbemiga, their best all-around special teams player last year, but on Thursday he came off injured reserve and will play this week.

""We missed him dearly, OK, but it's next man up. OK?" Hightower said. "So if we do get him, that will be phenomenal.

“And nobody in that room, all right, wants to get it corrected more than the players, all right? And we are going to work night and day to get it all cleaned up. I can promise you that."

Hightower didn't want to blame player absence but they also have had to tolerate the loss of  valued special team veteran Travis Homer for a month with an injury and now coverage ace Josh Blackwell has a concussion. They also were without Roschon Johnson, but he had a second straight limited practice Thursday and could return from a back injury.

"I don't want to make excuses for what happened. I don't do that," Hightower said. "But if we want to talk about the player Roschon, he is an outstanding piece to have. If you have him, you're always gonna have a better chance. But it's next man up, whoever's on the field. It doesn't matter.“

Hightower said his younger special teams players and backups need to take the attitude, “I'm gonna be a Travis Homer or an Amen or one of those type of guys. And you get limited opportunities to make that happen."

Devil is in the details

The game-opening kickoff return by Charlie Jones though a gaping hole in coverage for a 98-yard TD was an area Hightower focused on extensively. He didn't want to get specific about personnel yet at this point in the week, but it sounds as if change is occurring and some could involve players now becoming healthy again.

"You wanna talk about some adjustments, we made some adjustments to the kickoff coverage after the play that we never want to see happen, but it did happen," Hightower said.

Part of the problem on the return wasn't on the coverage, though. It was kicker Cairo Santos.

"First of all, on the kickoff coverage, to start the play the kick location is not where we wanted it, OK?" Hightower said.

A ball in the wrong place moved the front wall on coverage.

“So, the kick location is not where we want it and the lane integtrity is not what we are used to doing and what we want to do,” Hightower said. “So, lane integrity is out of whack and that's what happened on the play. And when any time lane integrity is out of whack and you got a big seam in there, that could happen with this new play. It could happen at any time."

Santos, on the other hand, didn't deserve as much blame as others for the blocked field goal he had because with the kick being longer it required a lower trajectory. They just needed to block for him.

"On the block kick, we didn't have C-gap presence (left side)," Hightower said. "So you need presence in the C gap. Everybody's got to be tied together, locked together there, so there's no penetration."

The embarrassing onside kick

The disaster that almost spelled defeat was the onside kick when Daniel Hardy, a defensive end by trade, was on the hands team and let the ball touch his foot before it traveled the required 10 yards. The Bengals pounced on it after it hit his foot.

Hightower said Hardy's role on hands team is supposed to be blocking on the play while Rome Odunze determines if the ball will go the required distance before falling on it.

"So what the rule for those guys that are blocking on the frontline is they need to go right now," Hightower said. "If you look at Noah (Sewell) on that play, he did exactly what he is supposed to do. He’s supposed to go right now, block his guy and get out of the way.

"If you hesitate, if you go inside, if you linger, then you're at risk for the ball to touch you and make the ball live. So, we just need to execute our responsibility with no hesitation. Don't blink. Go right now, block our guy and get out of harm's way and let Rome (Odunze) make the decision right there."

It’s been a season when special teams showed up far too often and not always in a positive way. The Bears blocked a kick to save a win, but Sunday’s game only was won because the offense came to the rescue of the special teams and defense.

Twice this week Ben Johnson pointed out how his team needs to start closing games out when they have the chance.

Special teams are not above reproach when it coms to this.

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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.