Bears

Bears Tried Out Six Kickers Including Nick Folk & Blair Walsh

January 25, 2019

Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that the Bears are bringing in free agent kickers for workouts on Friday including Nick Folk.

Field Yates has the full list of tryouts including:

Nick Folk
Josh Gable
Redford Jones
Ernesto Lacayo
Austin MacGinnis
Blair Walsh

The Bears have made it clear that they’re going to bring in some competition for Cody Parkey this offseason, so it would not be surprising to see them check out more kickers.

Folk, 34, is a former sixth-round pick of the Cowboys back in 2007. He spent over two years in Dallas before he signed on with the Jets in 2010 as a free agent.

Folk was entering the final year of his four-year, $12 million contract that included $2.1 million guaranteed when the Jets released him.

The Buccaneers later signed Folk to a one-year, $1.75-million contract to compete with Roberto Aguayo and he managed to win the job this summer. However, he was placed on injured reserve and eventually released in February of last year.

In 2017, Folk appeared in four games and converted just 6 of 11 field goal attempts (54.5 percent) to go along with 7 of 9 extra point tries.

Walsh, 29, is a former sixth-round pick of the Vikings back in 2012. He’s was in the second year of his five-year, $13.66 million contract and set to make a base salary of $1.15 million for the 2016 season when the Vikings cut him loose during the 2016 season.

Walsh later signed a one-year, $1.1 million contract with the Seahawks last year and is once again testing the open market as an unrestricted free agent.

In 2017, Walsh appeared in all 16 games for the Seahawks and converted 21 of 29 field goal attempts (72.4 percent) to go along with 37 of 38 extra point tries (97.4).