100 People Attempted a Field Goal for a Big Prize From a Brewery & It Went Horribly

By Dustin Nelson

Published on 1/13/2019 at 6:39 PM

The Chicago Bears suffered a devastating loss in the opening round of the NFL playoffs. It came down to a field goal. One 43-yard field goal. Kicker Cody Parkey had his kick tipped, it missed the mark, and the Bears' season came to an end. Parkey faced a lot of criticism online. So, the Chicago-based Goose Island Brewery offered Chicagoans the opportunity to prove they could do better. It managed to inject a little fun and levity into the season-ending loss for heartbroken fans. 

They invited people to the Fulton Street brewery on Saturday, January 12 for their chance to attempt the infamous field goal. The reward was a pair of tickets to an NFL game of their choosing. If they hit the first kick, they could try an NFL-record 65-yard field goal. That would win them two tickets to this year's Super Bowl. Hundreds of people showed to get a chance at the kick and to watch people give it a go in the snow. The man who went first had even been in line for five hours, according to Madeline Kenney of the Chicago Sun-Times.

"It became much bigger than we ever thought it would," Zac Connelly, the Goose Island employee who came up with the idea, told ESPN. "The last couple days have been crazy." The idea was popular enough that Goose Island decided to limit the number of entrants to 100 and didn't limit the number of people who could win the prize. Two-and-a-half hours before the kick-off, all 100 slots had been filled.

Fortunately, for anyone at Goose Island worried about having to give prizes to 100 amateur kickers, not a single person managed to hit the mark. 

The results were hilarious. There are 100 people with a little more sympathy for Parkey after missing on their one shot for glory. 

Since no one managed to make their kick, the brewery is donating $20,000 to the charity of Parkey's choosing, which was the Lurie Children's Hospital, per ESPN. 

h/t Twitter Moments


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Dustin Nelson is a News Writer with Thrillist. Follow him @dlukenelson.