Bears Sign New Specialist to Compete With Returning Starter

Getty Trenton Gill, #16, has a new challenge in the Chicago Bears' punter room.

The Chicago Bears are adding another punter to their ranks to compete with returning rookie starter Trenton Gill for the job in 2023.

The Bears are signing 27-year-old punter Ryan Anderson to their 90-man offseason roster with Anderson himself announcing the news on his personal Twitter account.

“Extremely fortunate to still be playing this game,” Anderson tweeted along with a picture of him signing his contract alongside a Bears helmet. “Beyond grateful to the Bears Organization for giving me the opportunity to continue living out my dream! #BearDown.”

Anderson was the first punter in Rutgers school history to earn First-Team All-Big Ten honors back in 2017, setting a single-season program record with an average of 44.4 yards per attempt and booting 34 of his punts at least 50 yards. Since then, however, he has only spent a couple of months on an NFL roster, joining the New York Giants’ 90-man roster in 2019 before cutting cut midway through August’s training camp.

Anderson has also earned a roster spot with the Birmingham Iron of the now-defunct American Alliance of Football, but he never played in any games as the Iron decided to release him just before the start of the season in favor of another punter.

Bears’ Punter Job Could Be Trenton Gill’s to Lose

Anderson could get an extended chance to prove himself if he makes it to training camp with the Bears, but Gill is still the favorite to win the starting job in 2023 at this point. The 24-year-old starter all 17 games of his rookie season for the Bears, booting 66 punts for an average of 46 yards per attempt. Overall, though, Pro Football Focus only graded him as the 24-best punter among those with a minimum of 48 punt attempts in 2022.

No doubt, Gill could stand to improve several areas of his punting game. His average hangtime (4.20 seconds) and his ability to pin punts inside the opposing 20-yard line (just 20 in 2022) weren’t the greatest during his rookie campaign, even though the Bears’ struggling offense often left him to boot it from deep inside their own territory. He also needs to work on the power in his leg with a 63-yard punt marking his longest of the year while 25 other league punts kicked one at least 65 yards or farther.

Fortunately, Gill still has the advantage of playing a full NFL season over Anderson, but he will need to ensure he shows the necessary improvements in the offseason and outperforms him when the time comes for the Bears to evaluate their 2023 options.

Will Bears Add More Specialist Challengers for 2023?

The Bears’ decision to sign Anderson signals that they want to have competition in their punter room for the 2023 offseason, but it will be interesting to see whether they want to do the same thing for their other specialist positions in the coming months.

The Bears currently have a solid option at kicker in Cairo Santos, who set a franchise record with 40 consecutive field-goal makes in 2021, but he is also coming off a year in which he missed a career-high five extra-point attempts, two of which he missed in the Bears’ nine-point win over the San Francisco 49ers in the 2022 season opener. The Bears might be comfortable with Santos keeping his job for 2023, but it could be worth adding another body to compete with him in training camp, especially since the Bears could save $4 million against the cap if they moved on from Santos after June.

Meanwhile, the Bears just re-signed longtime veteran Patrick Scales in March to be their long snapper again in 2023. Scales has been with the Bears since 2015 and has been mostly consistent throughout his run. He also signed a deal that includes most of his money ($1,092,500 of $1,317,500) guaranteed. Still, the amount the Bears would have to eat to move on from Scales would be minimal in the grand scheme of things, so it could be in their long-term interest to add a young challenge for him as well.