Eddie Jackson in Running for Punt Returner

Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower has done the math.

It's part of the reason why Velus Jones Jr. is among the players who could be returning punts Monday night against New England for the Bears after he muffed two punts late in games.

Hightower wouldn't say who will do it yet, but indicated all the usual suspects were back fielding punts at practice, players who did it in training camp and preseason: Eddie Jackson, Josh Blackwell and Dante Pettit are joining Jones in practice.

Jackson seems like he'd be too busy being a starting safety to worry about doing something risky that he hasn't done since his rookie year of 2017, and then only twice in one game.

"You'll probably have to ask Eddie that, but I know every time we do drill work, he's back there running down as a gunner trying to help the young guys, or he's back there catching them himself," Hightower said. "He does a lot of work that people don't see outside of defense to help young guys. I think he's a tremendous leader and he's having a really good season."

Whether it continues as a punt returner seems unlikely but Blackwell is an interesting possiblity.

Blackwell is the Bears' special teams surprise already with four teams tackles, a fumble forced and one recovered as a punt gunner and on kick coverage. He's no stranger to returning the ball, although the Bears did not initially realize this.

"I did it in college, kind of the same thing," Blackwell said. "We had a guy that was catching punts. I kind of came up and I tried to catch them. I did what I could, and, I guess, do whatever I could to help the team."

This was at Duke. Blackwell returned 25, which is seven more than Jones returned in college. Blackwell averaged 9.2 yards a return, including an average of 10.9 per 13 returns in his second year.

After college, Blackwell signed as an undrafted Eagles free agent and eventually was cut, but the Bears signed him for the regular roster when Philadelphia wanted him back for its practice squad.

The Eagles didn't try him returning punts.

"I got here (Chicago) and they didn't even know I caught punts in college," Blackwell said.

Then Hightower asked Blackwell if he had experience with returns and sent him back to do it in practice.

Pettis was doing it before Jones recovered from a hamstring injury and started doing it. Pettis had four regular-season punt returns for 3 total yards.

The Bears had only seen Jones return two punts in preseason games, one a 48-yarder. When he started doing it for real in the regular season, he had obvious problems judging it.

"So when you talk about punter and especially with rookies, OK, sometimes these rookies don’t ever get a chance to see a 5.1 ball (5.1 seconds hang time); anything over 5.0 is really good," Hightower said. "So, that ball is hanging up there a ton and then it's a 54-yard punt at 5.0, 5.2, 5.3 with guys bearing down on him getting ready to hit him.

"So, that is something that they have to see off if the foot. He has to see it off of the foot when the punter does his drop. You have to catch if off the foot and you have to get your feet to the spot before the ball comes down and get settled."

Hightower said it's not surprising Jones would muff the ball. He did a quick study of muffed punts this season and found through five weeks there had been 18 and six of those players who had a muff were rookies.

"It's what happens with rookies," Hightower said. "They're going to make mistakes. Just have to keep working, have to keep getting better."

Or else there are tryouts in-season to see who takes away the job, because it would be awfully bold and possibly even irresponsible for the Bears to send Jones back out again right away in games to return punts after costing the team dearly twice.

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