Special teams coordinator Richard Hightower is confident that sixth-year pro Trent Taylor will rebound Sunday against the Cardinals after muffing two punts in swirling winds and steady rain last weekend in Cleveland.
“We have a tremendous amount of confidence in Trent,” Hightower said. “He has been phenomenal with that throughout his career. One thing I know about Trent Taylor is he’ll bounce back because he’ll feel like he’s backed into a corner.”
This week at Halas Hall, Hightower has seen a fierce determination from the 5-8, 178-pounder to make amends for his two miscues, one of which resulted in a turnover.
“He is a fighter amongst all fighters,” Hightower said. “That’s how a guy that size can play in this league. I’m looking forward to him playing this week. He’s got a look in his eye … like he’s a rookie again. He was really upset about that. He still was upset about it this morning in a punt return meeting. I can just see it. It’s on his face.”
On Wednesday, Taylor practiced catching punts by pressing towels between both arms and his body and holding tennis balls in his hands.
“We just honed in back on the fundamentals,” Hightower said. “We worked our towel drill where we make them catch the football with ‘basket closed.’ That’s even more difficult, keeping my elbows tight to my rib cage and I’ve got two tennis balls in my hands, and I’ve got to catch the ball, and he caught all of them.”
Hightower explained in detail why the Bears decided against attempting a 55-yard field goal into the wind on the final play of the first half in Cleveland.
“In our pre-game process, we work kicks each direction and we always talk about a normal kick line, where we feel comfortable with a high degree of confidence that we’re going to make the kick,” Hightower said.
“That’s one element of it. But there’s also another element of it that we call a monster kick line. And that is, end of half, end of game situation, where we say, ‘Hey, it’s a lower percent chance to make it—maybe 1-out-of-10 percent chance to make it,’ and with wind being a factor, we were actually even outside of our monster kick line.”
The Bears also determine normal and monster kick lines for opponents after monitoring their kickers in warm-ups.
“We have someone assigned to that kicker, just like most teams in the league,” Hightower said. “And we’re not only watching their kick line, we’re watching…
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