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Roster move: Bears waive kicker Chris Blewitt

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The Bears on Wednesday waived kicker Chris Blewitt.

Blewitt had signed with the team March 6. He kicked for four seasons at the University of Pittsburgh from 2013-16, converting 69.6 of his field-goal attempts (55 of 79).

Blewitt's departure leaves the Bears with two kickers, Elliott Fry and Eddy Pineiro.

Fry signed with the Bears April 12. He played four seasons at South Carolina from 2013-16 and spent this spring with the Orlando Apollos in the Alliance of American Football, which suspended operations April 2 with two weeks left in its regular season.

Fry converted all 14 field goals he attempted with the Apollos, with a long of 44 yards.

Fry had a stellar career at South Carolina, arriving as a walk-on and leaving as the school's all-time leading scorer with 359 points. He connected on 66-of-88 field-goal attempts (75 percent) and 161-of-162 extra-point tries (99.4 percent).

The Bears acquired Pineiro in a trade with the Raiders May 7 in exchange for a conditional 2021 seventh-round draft pick. The deal stipulates that the Bears will only surrender the pick if Pineiro is on their active roster for at least five regular-season games this year.

Pineiro signed with Oakland last year as an undrafted free agent from Florida. It appeared that he was going to beat out veteran Mike Nugent for the Raiders job, but Pineiro sustained a groin injury in training camp that landed him on injured reserve.

Pineiro appeared in one preseason game with Oakland, converting 3-of-3 field-goal attempts from 21, 48 and 45 yards in a 16-10 win over the Lions.

Pineiro is the most accurate field-goal kicker in Florida history, having made 88.4 percent of his attempts (38 of 43) with a long of 54 yards. The Miami native made 29 of his last 30 field-goal tries for the Gators, including his final 16. 

In Tuesday's minicamp practice, all three Bears kickers missed a 42-yard field-goal attempt. Asked by a reporter what went through his mind at the time, coach Matt Nagy said: "Whatever went through your mind went through my mind."

"That's about as real as it gets," Nagy said Tuesday. "They were 0-for-3 out there. We can't have that today. We are going to figure this thing out, but 0-for-3 today, no good."

Nagy was asked what impact the three misses had on the rest of the Bears players.

"They went back-to-back-to-back and all three missed," Nagy said. "And so they are being evaluated not just by you, not just by me but by their teammates. Again, do you make it or do you miss it? We missed three today.

"For us as evaluators, if they all went 3-for-3 today, we wouldn't be talking about it, right? But at the same time, what's real is they didn't and that's why we are talking about kickers in this situation, because we miss.

"We have to just keep trusting our evaluation of these three kickers. It's not just one person, it's all of us together. We talk it through and we figure it out and we do everything we possibly can to make sure that in the end when we get to the very end, we have the right guy there."

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