Rebuild Hits Special Teams Again

The Bears have lost the franchise's all-time punting leader in terms of overall average, and it was the rival Packers who signed him.

The Packers began working at fortifying their special teams weakness by signing Pat O'Donnell in free agency according to ESPN. O'Donell got a slight raise to $4 million over two years. O'Donnell's 45.1-yard career average was best in Bears history, which reflects how difficult punting at Soldier Field actually is.

O'Donnell was third best in Bears history at net punting (42.0).

It's not surprising to see the Packers pursuing a new punter since it was a blocked punt that helped end their season in the playoffs.

It's the second time in a few days they have lost a key special teams component, as return man Jakeem Grant signed with Cleveland.

Overall, O'Donnell was never one of the league's better punters in terms of numbers, although the winds on the lakefront had plenty to do with this.

O'Donnell wasn't terrible last season but is coming off what was one of his worst seasons. His 46.2 yards a punt was his second best but in many other ways he struggled.

The Bears had signed former Cardinals, Panthers and Washington punter Ryan Winslow to give him competition. Now they'll need to sign someone to give Winslow competition.

O'Donnell was 13th in punting average among punters with at least 50 punts. He was three places and 0.3 yards an attempt behind Packers punter Corey Bojorquez in average.

O'Donnell was 25th in net punting average at 38.5 yards.

Some of O'Donnell's problems last year with net punting stemmed from the poor punt coverage the Bears had. They were 30th in the league last year.

Now O'Donnell is going to the team that had the worst coverage unit.

However, a punter's hang time also has an impact on net punting and O'Donnell was 22nd in fair catches forced. He also had to punt fewer times than in recent years, in fact, matching his career low for punts with 62.

Nor was O'Donnell efficient last year at getting the ball killed inside the 20-yard line. His nine touchbacks was a career high and 19 punts downed inside the 20 was a career low. The 11 fair catches he had was also a career low.

Losing O'Donnell breaks up the exchange in placement kicking for the Bears as he was their holder on field goals and extra points. He had always done a solid job of this, although they also had always been complimentary of his long snapper and have signed Patrick Scales to a new contract.

O'Donnell was last year's third highest-paid punter remaining in free agency as of Thursday at $1.75 million.

Among punters still in free agency are Johnny Hekker of the Rams, who was paid $3.76 million, and Riley Dixon of the Giants ($2.9 million).

Winslow has averaged 42.03 yards for his career and 39.7 net in his NFL stops.