Bears add PK Jones to compete with Parkey
The Chicago Bears have added competition for embattled kicker Cody Parkey, signing Redford Jones on Friday, his agency confirmed.
Jones, who kicked collegiately at Tulsa, has not previously been on an NFL roster.
He now has a chance to compete for the starting job with Parkey, who missed a field goal at the end of an NFC wild-card round game against the Eagles that would have won the game. Parkey struggled in his first season with the Bears, missing a total of 11 kicks, the most by any kicker in the league.
The Bears worked out five other kickers in addition to Jones on Friday: former Jets kicker Nick Folk, Josh Gable, Ernesto Lacayo, Austin MacGinnis and Blair Walsh.
Chicago signed Parkey in free agency to a contract that included $9 million in guaranteed money, but Parkey missed eight field goals and three extra points for the Bears, including the ill-fated last-second field goal attempt against the Eagles that bounced off the left upright and hit the crossbar.
He bounced four kicks off the uprights during a Week 10 victory over the Detroit Lions.
The team would have to carry $4,437,500 worth of dead salary-cap money if it cuts Parkey.
Head coach Matt Nagy expressed disapproval last week with Parkey’s decision to appear as a guest on the Today Show five days after missing the kick.
On Wednesday, quarterback Mitchell Trubisky said he supported Parkey regardless of his decision to go on TV.
“He made a personal decision, and us being teammates and a family, we’ve just got to support our guys no matter what they do,” Trubisky said.
When asked about Parkey last week, GM Ryan Pace said: “I know Cody wishes he had a better season. We wish he had a better season, too. We’ve just got to evaluate that now. You’ve got to be honest with yourselves in these. I think as we go forward, that’s when we’ve got to be real and say, hey, that’s an important position for us. It’s a position of emphasis.”
At the minimum, Pace said the Bears will have a kicker competition in 2019, if not an outright change.
“That’s going to be an emphasis and focus for us, the kicker position, and there’ll definitely be competition there,” Pace said.
For now, the competition starts with Jones.
Information from ESPN’s Jeff Dickerson was used in this report.