Chicago Bears all-time leading scorer Robbie Gould retires from NFL

Robbie Gould is hanging up his cleats.

The Bears’ all-time leading scorer announced his retirement Thursday in an article posted to The Players’ Tribune. The 41-year-old placekicker played for the Bears, Giants and 49ers over 18 NFL seasons. He leaves the NFL 10th in career scoring. He made the announcement one day after his 41st birthday.

“To have the kind of playing-career experience that I had in the NFL was nothing short of amazing, and my level of gratitude for the journey – the ups, the downs, the in-between – is immeasurable,” Gould wrote in The Players’ Tribune.

Gould played 11 seasons with the Bears from 2005-15. When he left the Bears after the 2015 season, he had accounted for 1,207 points, more than any other Bears player in history. Former kicker Kevin Butler, who played for the team from 1985-95, previously held the record at 1,116 points.

Gould’s NFL origin story was remarkable. He went undrafted in 2005 out of Penn State, where he originally walked on the team. He signed as an undrafted free agent with the Patriots and spent the offseason in New England, learning from Hall of Fame kicker Adam Vinatieri and all the star players on those Patriots teams of the mid-2000s.

When he didn’t make the team coming out of training camp, Gould spent an even briefer stint on the Ravens’ practice squad. The Ravens released him three weeks later, and Gould went home to Pennsylvania and found a job working construction.

He was on the job in early October when he received a call at work from the Bears. As Gould recounted in his article at The Players’ Tribune, he initially thought the phone call was a prank and hung up several times.

The Bears kept calling.

What was supposed to be a brief stint filling in as the Bears’ kicker became an 11-year journey in Chicago. He was a key part of the Bears’ teams of those years, which featured a stifling defense led by linebacker Brian Urlacher and cornerback Charles Tillman. Gould kicked during Bears playoff games in 2005, 2006 and 2010, including a trip to Super Bowl XLI after the 2006 regular season.

Heading into the 2016 season, the Bears cut Gould as a cost-saving measure a week before the season. He wound up playing 10 games with the Giants that season before signing with the 49ers the following offseason. Gould spent the rest of his career in San Francisco, making another Super Bowl appearance after the 2019 season. Gould played all 17 games in 2022, but the 49ers did not re-sign him for the 2023 season.

During his time in San Francisco, Gould worked closely with special teams coordinator Richard Hightower. When the Bears hired head coach Matt Eberflus in 2022, Eberflus brought Hightower to Chicago to take on the same role.

“I just wanted to congratulate him on a long, successful career,” Hightower said Thursday at Halas Hall. “Great competitor. Clutch in big moments when we needed him to be. Consistent, you know? Everybody knows he’s the all-time Bears leading scorer, and [he] means a lot to the city of Chicago.

“[I] just want to congratulate him on a hell of a career. He has done an outstanding job. Wishing him the best in the next phase of his life.”