Cody Parkey Missed Field Goal Leads To Misdirected Venmo Payments

Chicago Bears placekicker Cody Parkey attained instant sports infamy Sunday when his missed field goal in the final seconds caused his team to lose to the Philadelphia Eagles at home in the NFC wild-card playoffs by a score of 16-15.

Parkey’s miss, which later video replay showed was partially blocked, as reported previously by Inquisitr, led to the early end of what had been a hugely successful season for the Bears, who went 12-4 and won the NFC North. But even stranger things began to happen in the aftermath of the game.

First, Eagles center Jason Kelce claimed in a postgame interview, per NBC Sports Philadelphia, that he hadn’t realized until after the game that the Bears’ kicker was Parkey, even though Parkey played for the Eagles for two years and Kelce was his teammate during that time. Then, Wikipedia locked Parkey’s page, due to “persistent vandalism,” per a Twitter post from Madeline Kenney of the Chicago Sun-Times.

And then, Eagles fans started expressing their appreciation to Parkey in an unusual way- by sending him money via Venmo.

Also according to NBC Sports Philadelphia, a group of Eagles fans discovered Parkey’s Venmo page and began sending him payments in appreciation for his missed kick allowing the Eagles to advance in the playoffs. It’s not clear exactly how much money Parkey received on the page, or if he will keep it.

And after that, reporter Will Brinson noticed several Venmo users changed their names to “Cody Parkey,” so as to “accidentally” receive payments meant for the actual Parkey. As demonstrated in the replies to Brinson’s tweet, at least a few people fell for this ruse.

Random Eagles fans all started Venmo’ing Cody Parkey money for the missed FG so a ton of people created fake Cody Parkey Venmo accounts trying to get paid by random Eagles fans. pic.twitter.com/ohTvRZsYtd

— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) January 7, 2019

After defeating the Bears, the Eagles will play the New Orleans Saints in the NFC divisional playoffs, next Sunday afternoon. The winner of that game will face the winner of Saturday’s matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Cowboys on the following Sunday.

“I feel terrible. I let the team down,” Parkey said in the Bears’ locker room after the game, as quoted by ESPN. “That’s on me. I have to own it. I have to be a man. Unfortunately, that’s the way it went today… There’s really no answer to it. I didn’t make it. I take that loss on me. The sun is going to shine tomorrow, but unfortunately, this one is going to sting for a while.”

The Bears will now have to decide whether to keep Parkey or find a new kicker in the offseason.