Bears new PK Nugent should be right at home Sunday in Cincinnati
Kicker Mike Nugent was signed on Monday to replace injured Cairo Santos (groin), but the newest Bear is more familiar than any of his teammates with Paul Brown Stadium.
That's where the Bears will face the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday, and where Nugent played for seven years, so he should feel right at home in his Bears debut.
"It's one of those things, I'm lucky I know the stadium," Nugent said. "I was there for a long time."
Nugent spent half of his 14 seasons with the Bengals and made 81.8 of his FG attempts. But he was waived near the end of the 2016 season after missing 6 of 29 extra-point attempts.
Most recently, he filled in with the Dallas Cowboys for Dan Bailey, who recently returned from a back injury. Now he's got another opportunity with the Bears.
"Any opportunity, any time you get the call to come to a work out and a team signs you, it's great," the 35-year old Nugent said. "Hopefully you did some of the right things in training camp or filling in for someone and a team says, 'We can depend on him to do the job for us.'"
Marvin Lewis, who has been the Bengals' coach for 15 years, remains a big Mike Nugent fan.
"He's a great pro," the Bengals' coach said. "Good spirit every day in the locker room. For a specialist, he's not finicky at all; he's one of the guys. That's probably another area I've been blessed with here, is having guys like Mike Nugent."
Nugent was originally a second-round (47th overall) draft pick of the New York Jets in 2005.
Bringing the juice:
Center Cody Whitehair is just two years older than Mitch Trubisky, but he's already a favorite of the rookie quarterback.
"I love Cody," Trubisky said. "He's my guy. He's probably one of the best practice players we have. We need more guys that practice like Cody does, with the energy and passion he brings. He's very protective of me, and he's very hard on himself.
"He's a perfectionist. He's done a great job for us. He's a great leader of this offense. I can't say enough great things about Cody Whitehair."
Whitehair has started every game since the Bears drafted him in the second round last year, and he says he's been motivated by the rookie's enthusiasm and tries to follow suit, which isn't easy in a 3-9 season.
"I just try to feed off of Mitch's energy," Whitehair said. "Obviously when the season isn't going the way you want it to, you can kind of bring some juice to pick guys up. That's kind of what I've done."
Injury update:
Safety Adrian Amos (hamstring), linebacker Pernell McPhee (shoulder) and nose tackle Eddie Goldman (hip) did not practice for a second straight day, and they were joined Thursday by wide receiver Josh Bellamy (illness).
Safety DeAndre Houston-Carson (ankle) was limited.
Ten Bengals did not practice, including seven starters: cornerbacks Dre Kirkpatrick (concussion) and Adam Jones (groin), linebackers Vontaze Burfict (concussion) and Nick Vigil (ankle), defensive tackle Geno Atkins (toe), running back Joe Mixon (concussion) and safety Shawn Wilson (ankle).
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