Bear Digest

Why Chicago Bears punter Tory Taylor has added to his skill set

Tory Taylor had a record year as a rookie punter and now Chicago Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower says he has added to his repertoire.
Gene Chamberlain|
Tory Taylor punts last year against the Washington Commanders in the "Hail Mary" game.
Tory Taylor punts last year against the Washington Commanders in the "Hail Mary" game. | Peter Casey-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Bears punter Tory Taylor emerged from his first Bears season with a team record for average distance while looking to improve.

At 47.7 yards per punt, it might seem difficult to elevate much more but just like with other second-year players like Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze, Taylor has been working at his craft more instead of trying to improve his draft position.

It has made a difference, according to Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower.

"He has worked on a number of things over the break," Hightower said. "You know how it is when you're a rookie, you're coming in, you're drinking out of fire hose.

"He's had a chance to really train—not train for the combine, not those type of things where you're always doing something in preparation for the draft. He's come back with a lot of different kicks and we're excited to work those throughout camp.”

It seemed like Taylor had a lot of different types of punts last year because of his skill at killing the ball inside the 10 or 15, or kicking it out of bounds in the coffin corner. His 34 punts downed inside the 20 ranked fourth in the league, but now he has added to the repertoire.

The other thing Taylor is doing well is helping the Bears choose their next punt returner. He's using this wider scope of punts to boot a wide range of punts to the return men vying for the job, players like Devin Duvernay, Olamide Zaccheaus, Maurice Alexander and Rome Odunze.

Earlier in camp it looked like Taylor was having trouble getting elevation on punts, but it was by design as he has been testing out all manner of punts to see how the playrs fielding them can handle all of them. Hightower is using this to decide who wins the return job.

"I tell you what, Tory's doing a phenomenal job challenging them,making it hard on them," Hightower said. "A lot of specialty kicks out there that he's worked on over the summer.

"So that's challenging a lot of our punt returners."

The Bears seemed like they barely scratched the surface with Taylor's skills last year.

The problem with seeing what else he's capable of is obvious—the Bears are giving up the football when he does it.

Considering Ben Johnson was used to coaching on a team with Jack Fox, the NFL's top punter, and the field position he provided, it would seem Taylor is going to need to show off every bit of those acquired skills to please his new coach.

The Lions offense when Johnson was in Detroit had the fourth, fifth and 11th best field position to start drives in his three years as coordinator. The Lions defense had the second, fourth and ninth-best field position to start drives in the same three years.

When Taylor came to the Bears in the same draft as Caleb Williams, the Bears QB joked they wouldn't be needing th new punter much.

Actually, they needed him a lot. If they get the offensive improvement they expect now, they'll like to complement it with a level of punting like Johnson had in Detroit.

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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.