The Bears Were So Close To Solving Their Kicker Issues In The Best Way Imaginable

Pat McAfee did a bit of a media tour yesterday after announcing that he was joining ESPN’s Thursday Night Football broadcast team. A sneaky BIG job for a guy with no real broadcasting experience to speak of. Now, I never worked directly with Pat McAfee at Barstool and I don’t know him personally, but it seems like he is still on good terms with Portnoy. No small feat for someone who left the company. So good for him.

The nugget here at the end where he was considering going back to football was such a kick in the balls. McAfee was a good kicker in college, thought he was going to be a kicker pre-draft, and then Bill Polian said nah you’re a punter in the NFL and the rest was history. McAfee coming to Chicago after a couple years off to play for the Bears would’ve been a dream come true. 1) the Bears obviously need a kicker and a kicker with balls who can deal with the media and the locker room…uhh…CHECK. And 2) McAfee is worth a few blogs per year and from a blogger’s perspective that is like free money. How many kickers in the league generate blog worthy material in a positive way? Now that the Janikowski and McAfee are out of the NFL I would say that list tops out at zero. Assuming McAfee still had the leg talent we almost hit the jackpot in Chicago. Instead, we will have to watch him call mostly random ACC games on Thursday night. North Carolina vs Louisville featuring Pat McAfee. It’s a god damn shame. A little nugget of information I wish I never knew so I didn’t have to agonize over it.