NEWSLETTER
Perhaps the Chicago Bears’ kicking competition didn’t end when the team cut ties with undrafted free agent Andy Phillips on Monday:
Source: former Bucs K Robert Aguayo has been claimed by the Chicago Bears off of waivers.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) August 13, 2017
ESPN’s Field Yates reports the Bears have claimed kicker Roberto Aguayo off waivers. As we noted in today’s Bullets, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers parted ways with Aguayo after the second-year kicker missed a field goal and an extra point in the team’s preseason opening loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.
Aguayo had his share of struggles in his rookie season. High expectations were placed on the second-round pick from Florida State, and he failed to meet them as he connected on just 22 of 31 field goal attempts (71%). He also missed a pair of extra points, but did win the NFC’s Special Teams Player of the Week award after making four field goals in a Week 11 road win against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Back at Florida State, Aguayo was more than exceptional in a career in which he was a three-time first-team All-American and Lou Garza Award winner in 2013. Aguayo was quite nice in making 69 of 78 field goal attempts (88.5%) and nailed each of his 198 PAT attempts. In his first two seasons, Aguayo was near perfect as he connected on 48 of 52 (92.3%) of his attempts with the Seminoles.
Connor Barth signed on with the Bears a year ago, but had some struggles of his own. Barth made just 78.3% of his attempts in his first year with the Bears, which marked his lowest success rate since 2009 when he was successful on only 73.7 percent on his attempts with the Buccaneers.
