Two words still live in the nightmares of Chicago Bears fans seven years later: Double Doink. It was the sound made when what would've been a game-winning field goal attempt by Cody Parkey clanged off the uprights twice before bouncing out. The miss cost the team a wild card playoff victory against the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles. Many believe it also cost them what would've been a Super Bowl run. That is how well the Bears were playing. After that moment, the team seemed to slowly circle the drain while the Eagles enhanced their status as one of the best in football. People were shocked. One person who wasn't? Eagles head coach Doug Pederson.
He didn't speak much about that game afterward, choosing to embrace the victory and move on. Nobody knew that he had a story nobody would've believed. He finally shared it on Pardon My Take. It turns out Pederson's special teams coordinator came to him with some intel before the game. Parkey was one of the more accurate kickers in the league. However, his hit rate on field goals was cut in half when opposing teams iced him. That is calling a timeout before a kick.
Sure enough, on that fateful night in front of 60,000 fans, Pederson spent his last timeout to ice Parkey. The scouting report proved dead on.
Doug Pederson showed trust in his coaches.
It also highlighted how poorly Matt Nagy and his staff did with self-scouting. One would think they would've picked up on such an enormous flaw in Parkey's kicking. Never mind the fact he'd already missed seven kicks by the end of the regular season. There was an easy case to be made that he should've been cut in favor of somebody else. Yet the Bears stayed the course, and Doug Pederson made them pay the price. Nagy probably still loses sleep at night over that game. Parkey didn't last much longer in the NFL. He had brief stints in Tennessee, New Orleans, and Cleveland before disappearing in 2022. The 33-year-old hasn't seen a football field of any kind since. That shows you how rapidly a career can end when teams sense you're mentally weak.
