Reported Bears Jake Moody signing gives Cairo Santos something to ponder

insurance.

When Robbie Gould decided he wasn't returning for 2023, Moody was the kicker the 49ers turned to and he didn't have a great career start there. Moody made 74.2% of his field goal tries (46 of 57) in three 49ers seasons. He missed 2-of-3 last week against the Seahawks and two of them came inside of 40 yards. Santos has never missed a field goal from inside of 40 yards with the Bears in seven seasons.

Moody, a former Michigan kicker, missed two extra points in two-plus seasons. He is 6-of-12 from 50 yards or longer.

Last week's missed 50-yard field goal in the fourth quarter seemed to trigger the Bears collapse. They led 17-6 at the time, but special teams coordinator Richard Hightower wasn't willing to attach all of the blame on the missed kick to Santos.

“We never want to leave points on the board," Hightower said. "My diagnosis is it always starts with the operation that snap, hold and kick, that wasn't clean. Protection was good. That wasn't clean.

"We didn't get it done and we need to get that done. It's just the whole operation. Whole operation wasn't cleaning up for us.”

As for the botched kickoff at game's end, Johnson took blame for not having Santos kick it out of bounds afterward. If they kicked off out of bounds they would have had more time at game's end for a last-second drive to a field goal. However, they would have given up 5 yards of field position with a penalty that they could have avoided if Santos kicked off out of the end zone.

Instead, he didn't get it out of the end zone, the ball was returned, it took time off the clock and then the Bears couldn't use the two-minute warning to stop the clock after a play. In the end, they had only nine seconds left to try to tie the game from deep in their own territory.

The kick was thoroughly weighed and it was a case of Santos saying he could kick it out of the end zone, then not getting it done.

“We have a discussion; it's communication between coaches and players and we communicate," Hightower said. "We thought that we could kick it out the back. The player thought he could kick it out the back.

"If that doesn't happen, then we go to the next option.”

Now the next option could be another kicker.