Bengals sign K Randy Bullock through 2018

The Cincinnati Bengals had a season to forget in 2016, and poor play on special teams was a huge contributing factor in the team’s disappointing 6-9-1 campaign. Cincy is hopeful that signing late-season acquisition at kicker, Randy Bullock, to a multi-year deal will help shore up a field goal unit that crippled the team in close games last year.

The Bengals spent most of last season being far too patient with former kicker Mike Nugent, whose PAT shanks became an almost weekly occurrence, and a source of ridicule in the Queen City. Week after week, the team would trot out the same rhetoric after another woeful performance: “Nugent is our man, and even if we didn’t want him, there’s nobody better to replace him with.”

Cincy was made to look even more foolish when the archrival Steelers signed the then-free agent Bullock as an emergency option prior to a blockbuster clash with the New York Giants. All Bullock did was go 3/3 on field goals in the unfriendly confines of Heinz Field, before he was again dumped for a healthy Chris Boswell the very next week.

As a Bengal, the man affectionately known as “Fat Randy” was an immediate improvement. He converted all six extra point attempts and made 5/6 field goals – the only miss being a last-second shank in Houston, the outcome of which had zero bearing on the Bengals’ playoff hopes.

Set to enter his sixth NFL season, Bullock was drafted by the Texans in the fifth round of the 2012 draft. The journeyman has converted 96% of all PAT attempts and kicked 83/102 FGs in his career.