Cairo Santos’ perfection of the ‘dirty’ kick adds new wrinkle to Bears’ special teams

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Following the Bears’ first touchdown against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 12, kicker Cairo Santos dropped the ensuing kickoff at the 19-yard line. It bounced at the 12 and then hopped through returner Kenneth Gainwell’s grasp at the 3. Gainwell recovered the ball but he was tackled by Bears defensive end Dominique Robinson at the 5.

Santos and the Bears’ special teams unit had executed a “dirty” kick to perfection.

“It was a huge boost,” special teams coordinator Richard Hightower said. “Provided a lot of boost.”

It resulted in the best field position provided by the Bears’ kickoff unit this season. The Steelers started on their XX-yard line.

“Our kickoff is really starting to become a weapon for us,” coach Ben Johnson said. “Cairo is doing a phenomenal job with some of these dirty kicks and it’s really helping us with our field position there to start drives on defense.”

That’s the goal of the dirty kick, and it starts by getting the ball to touch down as shallow in the landing zone as possible. Not only does that increase the chance of a chaotic bounce, but it also allows the coverage team to move as soon as the ball lands.

Developing the skill set, however, is easier said than done. Despite Santos’ recent success with it, Sunday was only the fifth time he’d used a dirty kick in a game.

“You have to be careful with it,” Hightower said. “Obviously, the [Los Angeles Rams], they do a lot of it, and it affects your field goal percentage, too, because it’s two different leg swings. You’re teaching the kicker to do two different things, so you have to be careful with that. Out in LA, that got to them a little bit and it’s gotten to different teams around the league at times. So, you just have to master it and use it when you need it.”

Through the first four weeks of the season, the Rams and kicker Joshua Karty relied heavily on the dirty kick. It resulted in the Rams leading the league in opposing offense starting position by a wide margin.

But it also drastically affected Karty’s field-goal success, culminating in his benching before Week 10. Karty hit just 10 of 15 attempts. He missed from 39 yards in Week 9 and 26 in Week 6, which is the shortest miss in the NFL this season.

“On a field goal, you want to keep your toe down and kind of sweep it into the sweet spot under the ball, kind of like a golf club,” Santos told CHGO. “To do a dirty kick, you kind of have to angle your toe more up just to hit a higher sweet spot of the ball to make it knuckle. And messing with that foot angle just creates a different muscle memory.”

The different muscle memory, however, isn’t a problem in practice when Santos has a full field to see the ball’s trajectory. It’s during the game on the sideline that creates a trickier situation.

“You kind of just have the net to go off of,” Santos said. “You can’t see the ball fly, so you don’t wanna play with that too much and affect your field goal ball striking.”

The kick motion isn’t the only reason to use it sparingly. It also helps if the opposing special teams unit isn’t expecting it every time.

“Returners will start playing you a little closer and definitely start to cheat before the ball gets that hop on the ground,” Santos said. “Shorter is the way to go, but also riskier, so it all depends how the team lines up and where you feel like the spaces are. Wind plays a factor as well. So, there’s a lot to read and also different types of return schemes that you want to avoid doing it towards, and so it kind of changes how and where you want to do it.”

Said Hightower: “It’s all strategy and gamesmanship at all times, any time you see it. It’s always going to be that way.”

That element of surprise is also why you won’t see punter Tory Taylor, who’s only kicked off three times in his NFL career, add the dirty kick to his own bag of tricks. He’d be open to learning it, though.

“I kind of just do as I’m told,” Taylor said. “If that’s an option they want to explore, I’d certainly be down, but I haven’t really kicked (off) a whole lot of balls, so that would certainly be something.”

After all, the implementation of the dirty kick into Santos’ repertoire didn’t happen overnight.

“It probably started last year, the concept of it,” Santos said. “But it seemed like this year, it’s become more popular with a lot of teams and teams that are leading the NFL in kickoff opponents starting field position are doing it more. So it’s something that we’ve sprinkled more into our game the last couple of weeks.”

“It’s just good to incorporate that into your practice,” Santos said, “and learning how to practice them, and also get back and you’re still in sync in the field goal kicking.”