Vrabel Praises Cairo Santos After 58-Yard Winner Beats Patriots

Q: How did the kicker Mike Vrabel once fire become the exact weapon that sealed his team's defeat years later?

Cairo Santos became the weapon that beat Mike Vrabel because the kicker Vrabel once cut rebuilt his career into one of the NFL’s steadiest success stories — and then delivered his biggest kick against his former coach. In 2019, when Vrabel was coaching the Titans, Santos was released after a disastrous game against Buffalo in which he missed four field goals. That could have ended his path as an NFL starter, but Santos kept working through multiple stops and eventually landed in Chicago in 2020. With the Bears, he remade himself as a dependable veteran kicker and has been among the league’s most reliable specialists since. That arc came full circle Thursday night. Santos had already missed a 53-yard try off the upright in the fourth quarter, but Bears coach Ben Johnson trusted him again. Santos said he wanted “redemption,” and from 58 yards with 1:34 left, he drilled a career-long field goal — the third-longest in Soldier Field history — to put Chicago ahead 30-21. New England later cut it to 30-24, but the kick stood as the game-winner. The significance was not just the distance, but the resilience. Santos turned the exact kind of failure that once got him fired into the poise that beat Vrabel years later. Vrabel acknowledged that afterward, saying he was proud of Santos’ comeback even if he did not want him to make that kick, and adding that when a player hits from 58 yards, “I don’t know how you get out-executed.”

Q: What psychological shift allowed Cairo Santos to shake off a devastating miss and drill a career-long game-winner?

The shift was from frustration over the miss to a deliberate “redemption” mindset grounded in trust and routine. Santos admitted the earlier 53-yard miss bothered him, saying misses “annoy” him. But instead of letting that spiral into hesitation, he reframed the next chance as an opportunity to make it right. When Bears coach Ben Johnson checked whether he wanted the 58-yarder, Santos’ answer was immediate: “I want it.” Johnson later said Santos told them, “Absolutely, I need redemption because I missed one earlier.” That response was backed by evidence, not emotion alone. Santos said he had been striking the ball well in practice and pregame warmups and felt he was inside his range. He told special teams coordinator Richard Hightower he felt good about the line, and the Bears’ staff trusted their pregame process on his maximum distance. In other words, Santos leaned on preparation and mechanics rather than dwelling on the previous result. Team confidence also mattered. Johnson’s decision to send him back out, and the support Santos said he felt from coaches and teammates, reinforced his own belief. Quarterback Caleb Williams described that confidence as central to Santos’ consistency. So the psychological change was not that the miss stopped hurting. It was that Santos redirected that irritation into a focused, confident reset: trust the work, trust the range, and treat the next kick as a chance to respond.

3 articles · Updated · NBC Sports · Oct 23

A 58-yard field goal by Cairo Santos sealed Chicago’s Thursday-night win over Mike Vrabel’s Patriots, prompting Vrabel to praise the former Titans kicker after the loss.
Vrabel said he was impressed Santos rebounded from an earlier 53-yard miss, calling it simply a great kick rather than a case of his team being out-executed.
Santos’ moment carried extra history: he missed four field goals for Vrabel’s Titans in a 2019 loss to Buffalo and was cut the next day.
Chicago signed Santos a year later, and he has been a steady kicker for the Bears since, turning a career-threatening setback into a game-clinching finish against his former coach.