Chicago Bears cut Andy Phillips

It would appear the Chicago Bears have made a roster move today, with the player in question tweeting out his gratitude to the Bears’ organization. Undrafted free agent Andy Phillips sent this tweet out on Sunday night.

The Bears have yet to make an official announcement, but this seems to be pretty cut and dried.

With Philips seemingly gone, that leaves the place kicking duties to the veteran, Connor Barth. I assumed the Bears would want to make a decision on the kicker as soon as possible, I just didn’t think it would happen til they had at least one preseaosn game under their belts.

Barth and Phillips have a similar skill set, and I did speculate if they were having an even battle, that head coach John Fox would side with the experience from Barth over the youth of Phillips.

But this wasn’t much of a battle.

Unless there were some missed kicks taking place at training camp that we weren’t aware of, I’m not sure what benefit there is in giving Barth, a guy coming off his worst field goal percentage since 2009, the job right now.

Perhaps there’ll be another camp leg brought in to compete.

The Bears have one roster spot open, so stay tuned to Windy City Gridiron for the latest.

EDIT: But for a second opinion, let’s throw it over to powertool, who wrote this fanpost that included his thoughts on the kicker battle from his trip to Family Fest.

Connor Barth appears head and shoulders above Andy Phillips. Phillips kind of seems like the odd man out of the ST boy's club. He worked away from the other 3 most of the practice and had extensive accuracy issues. Barth looks polished and fitter than last year, though he did miss a XP during scrimmage. Even in practicing kickoffs it seemed Barth had more power.

Someone get powertool a gig scouting kickers.

EDIT: The Bears have signed WR Alton “Pig” Howard to take Phillips’ place on the 90 man roster. Our story right here.