Bear Digest

Bears 2024 Training Camp Preview: Tory Taylor Touted as Special

Analysis: The rookie punter from Iowa could make the Bears a complete special teams group, considering kicker Cairo Santos' skill and a potentially dangerous return group.

Gene Chamberlain

Bears Aussie punter Tory Taylor, the former Iowa Hawkeye, could upgrade this aspect of special teams considerably.
Bears Aussie punter Tory Taylor, the former Iowa Hawkeye, could upgrade this aspect of special teams considerably. / David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
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The Bears currently have the most accurate field goal kicker in team history, something hard to fathom after Cody Parkey's double doink cost them a playoff game in the 2018 season.

In the past, they have had the best return man in history in Devin Hester as well as Cordarrelle Patterson and several others.

What they haven't had on special teams is one of the best long-distance and directional punters. The selection in the draft of Iowa's Tory Taylor gives them a chance now to dominate field position.

"It's rare, the strength in his leg and then the touch that he has," Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower said.

Taylor needs to be everything the Bears say because teams rarely spend fourth-round picks on punters. It's a lot of pressure to handle but this type of thing has never stopped the Aussie native.

"Pressure is a privilege," Taylor said. "I think it's really one of those things a lot of that just comes down to a matter of opinion and the people in this building I listen to.

"The opinions outside this building there's not much I can do. I really just worry about what I can control and really I’m just trying to get better as a punter. I don’t really worry about any of the external stuff."

In college, he handled pressure by propping up an ineffective Iowa offense with great field position all year. Bears opponents should get used to seeing the shadow of their own goal posts.

Taylor finished fourth in the country in punting average (47.9 yards), made 36 punts of 50 or more yards and six 60-yarders.

He had 125 of his 288 punts land inside the 20-yard line and in his final year had 30 downed inside the 20.

In one game earlier in his career against Penn State, he had five punts downed inside the 8.

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In a year when a Big Ten team won the national title, Taylor received a vote from one of the conference's head coaches for Big Ten player of the year and it wasn't Iowa's Kirk Ferentz.

Taylor is so good with placement and spin that he had coach Matt Eberflus referring to him as a "trick-shot artist."

Hightower thinks Taylor can also help by kicking off in this season with new kickoff rules.

Taylor doesn't doubt it.

"Like, I'm fortunate to be one of the guys on the field who has the ball in his hands and that means at that specific period of time you're in control of the game and obviously I want to win," Taylor said. "So I want to control the game how I want to. And if that includes being out on kickoff then that would be great."

It would be another way for the Bears to avoid harm in a division where return men seem to rule.

"Like, in our NFC North all the returners are loaded," Hightower said. "All the teams are loaded. If you don't have a returner in the NFC North you're behind the 8-ball."

Green Bay's Keisean Nixon has been All-Pro on kick returns the last two years. Kene Nwangwu of the Vikings was second-team All-Pro on kick returns in 2022. Detroit's Kalif Raymond hasn't been All-Pro but has averaged in double digits for yards per punt return in five of his seven seasons.

The Bears feel they made strides by bringing in potential punt returner DeAndre Carter, who averaged 9.7 and 11.7 yards per return the last two seasons. Kick returner Velus Jones Jr. is the only kick returner in the NFL with more than 10 returns each of the last two seasons and an average of at least 27 yards per return in both seasons.

With Taylor, those returners and Santos, who made 35 of 38 field goals last year and 7 of 8 from 50 yards or longer, the Bears would appear will suited to control games in special teams.

They had one major flaw in the past and it was covering punts. A punter with better hang time can help. They finished 30th and 19th the last two years at this with two different punters.

Many of their coverage players were in their first or second year doing their job last year and now have the extra seasoning as well as the help from Taylor's talented leg to assist them.

"We've seen a lot of growth out there, a lot of improvement in technique, especially from my younger guys," Hightower said.

Bears Special Teams Outlook

Specialists:  No. 8 Kicker Cairo Santos, No. 48 Long Snapper Patrick Scales, No. 19 Punter Tory Taylor (also holds for placement)

Backups: No. 43 Long Snapper Cameron Lyons, No. 37 Punter Corliss Waitman

Top Return Men: No. 12 Wide Receiver Velus Jones Jr. (kickoffs), No. 30 Wide Receiver DeAndre Carter (punts, kickoffs), No. 81 Wide Receiver Dante Pettis (punts), No. 10 Wide Receiver Tyler Scott (kickoffs)

Strengths: Punting becomes one with Taylor's height and length despite being a punter who had to kick in the Midwest in college. Santos' accuracy, at 90.4% in Chicago, is best ever by a Bears kicker and he last year was given the opportunity to kick from longer distances, proving he could do it. He's 11 of 13 the last two years from 50 yards and longer. Before those two years he was 10 of 22 over eight NFL seasons. Jones gives them great speed and size in a kick returner.

Weaknesses: Punt return has been a weakness and could be drastically improved with Carter, but this isn't guaranteed. He has averaged 9.8 yards for his career but is not the most sure-handed player or one who protects the ball well. He has fumbled 24 times n six seasons, eight times the last three seasons. Jones is no alternative as a punt returner as he has struggled fielding them, and Pettis was only average as a returner when he did it in 2022. The Bears have actually talked about Rome Odunze doing it. Although he had a touchdown return at Washington, he has little in-game experience doing it and it would be putting a first-round pick at risk to let him try.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher 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.