Eddy Pineiro has talent. The kid has plenty of leg to hit long field goals and has shown streaks of pinpoint accuracy. He hit a clutch game-winner in Denver and finished the final five games last season a perfect 18-for-18 on kicks. That said, the Chicago Bears kicker had some pretty ugly rough patches. Two missed field goals against the Chargers. Two missed field goals against the Rams. He ended up finishing with an 84% accuracy rate. Not Cody Parkey bad but not what the Bears are looking for.

So that begs the question. What contributed to those struggles through the first 11 games? Health might have played a part. Pineiro suffered a pinched nerve in his knee in the win over Denver. Something that seemed to affect him considerably for a time after that. It’s uncertain how long the issue lingered but his inconsistency pretty much started after it happened.

The second-year kicker though offered another explanation to Bears All-Access.

“The first year with the Bears was a good learning experience. I think there’s a lot of room for improvement. I think I can get better. And I’m hoping for another successful year this year. Hopefully I can get my percentage up a little bit. The biggest learning experience for me was kicking in a windy game and then going to a dome, that transition. I feel like I’ve matured a lot as a kicker and hopefully this year goes good for me.”

Eddy Pineiro made an interesting point but is it valid?

One must remember that Pineiro played college football at Florida. So he was used to playing outdoors consistently and rarely saw time inside a dome. So this would make sense since NFL teams go from outside to inside much more often. Going from windy conditions to no wind at all would take some getting used to. At the same time, does this explain his struggles? Not entirely.

There were two instances in which the kicker went from outdoor conditions to indoor conditions. The first came in November when he went from Soldier Field against the Giants to Ford Field in Detroit for Thanksgiving. Then back to Soldier Field against Dallas. He missed one kick out of 13 in that stretch and it came in the first game where the transition issue wouldn’t have mattered.

The second instance was the season finale. After playing Kansas City at Soldier Field, the Bears finished up against the Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. Pineiro was a perfect 6-of-6 between those two games. So this idea the transition threw him off at times isn’t backed up by the data.

Either way, he knows he has to be better. The Bears let him know that too when they signed Ramiz Ahmed as competition. It will be interesting to see if he makes progress.