Cairo Santos had come to accept his kicking career might be nearing an end – then he made 27 straight field goals

LAKE FOREST – There was a moment when Bears kicker Cairo Santos had full clarity.

He had just missed a field goal in the first quarter of the Bears’ Week 3 game Sept. 27 last year in Atlanta. The missed 46-yard field goal was his second miss in as many weeks.

On the sideline after the kick, Santos felt the pressure melt away. He had been down this road. He had struggled through tough times as an NFL kicker.

A year earlier, he had missed all four field goal attempts in a single game as a member of the Tennessee Titans. The Titans cut him the next day. He’d been to the top, earning a stable job with Kansas City four three straight years from 2014-16. It was stable until it wasn’t. His fourth year in Kansas City, he suffered a groin injury that nagged him for the next two years.

When Santos missed that kick in Week 3 last season, it wasn’t a “here we go again” feeling that ran through Santos’ head. Instead, it was the acceptance that either it’s going to work out, or it’s not. He either had what it takes to be an NFL kicker, or he didn’t.

In his seventh NFL season in 2020, he was done fretting about what could go wrong. He was ready to accept it. He had a baby on the way. If his kicking career was over and being a dad was his new No. 1 job, he could live with that.

“I just kind of accepted it as, if it’s meant to be, I’m going to keep grinding,” Santos said. “So if I get another chance here in this game, I’m going to attack that kick to make it. If I’m done, I’ve got to move on, because I keep trying and not being the guy I was in Kansas City.”

Santos had another chance later in that same first quarter and nailed a 35-yard field goal. He didn’t miss again for the rest of the season.

He wound up having one of the best kicking seasons in Bears history. By field goal percentage, it was No. 1 in team history at 93.8%. He ended the season with 27 consecutive made field goals, a team record. That streak is alive heading into 2021.

He answered those questions that were running through his head that day in Atlanta. He is, emphatically, an NFL kicker. He proved that last season, and the Bears rewarded him with a contract extension that will keep him in Chicago through at least 2023.

[ Bears kicker Cairo Santos: Chicago is ‘where my heart is’ ]

“I felt like I started playing a little looser and put everything in God’s hands and went one kick at a time, and here we are,” Santos said. “It’s just humbling to go through that again in the middle of a game and to just accept it and just kind of, it’s outside of my hands. Let me just go with it, one kick at a time.”

Santos’ baby boy was born Nov. 3. Out of a really difficult 2019 season and an unprecedented 2020 offseason, marred by the coronavirus, Santos had found two beautiful things – a second chance as an NFL kicker and his baby boy.

For the first time in a long while, the Bears aren’t worried about their situation at kicker heading into the season.