Chicago Bears: 3 Stats They Must Improve In 2016
By Erik Lambert
Special Teams: Missed Field Goals
It may be overly simplistic but there is no questioning the validity of this stat. Too many missed field goals can be backbreaking for a team that’s trying to win as many close games as the Bears played in 2015. Of their 10 total losses, eight of them were decided by single digits. Four of them by three points or less. That is how close they were to being a winning team and it’s hard not to place some of that blame on Robbie Gould.
The veteran kickers has been so money for Chicago in years past but it was a down cycle for him last season. Through the first six weeks he was perfect, hitting 15-of-15 field goals. Then after he missed a crucial one against Minnesota that proved the difference in the game, he seemed to go off the rails. Over the next six weeks following that loss, he would miss five more kicks including 3-of-5 in back-to-back three-point losses to San Francisco and Washington. It had many calling for Gould to lose his job, but the Chicago Bears brass have stuck by him to this point.
He’ll have to show what happened was an unfortunate rut, and not the start of a disturbing trend.