Life is good for Robbie Gould: He’s still red-hot and Bears are in the playoffs

Three seasons after the Bears gave up on him, kicker Robbie Gould still is a Chicagoan and enough of a Bears fan to enjoy his former team’s renaissance season from afar.

“I’m happy they’re in the playoffs this year,” said Gould, who has made 29 of 30 field-goal attempts for the 49ers this season. “They haven’t been there in eight years. To see them back in the playoffs is going to be pretty exciting.

“I think I’m going to go to the game. I’m going to take my boys with me because I haven’t been able to go to an NFL game with them. I’m just excited for them to be there and watch them hopefully win the Super Bowl.”

The Bears’ return to the postseason has relieved much of the sting from their decision to cut Gould before the 2016 season — a move that blew up on them. Gould has been on an almost unprecedented run since leaving the Bears, hitting 80 of 83 field-goal attempts (96.4 percent) with the Giants and 49ers, including 6 of 6 from 50 yards or longer. He is 2-0 against the Bears and made 5 of 5 field goals against them in a 15-14 victory for the 49ers last season at Soldier Field.

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His field goals this season include a game-winning 36-yarder to beat the Seahawks last week. That earned him NFC Special Teams Player of the Week honors. He’s also the 49ers’ Walter Payton Man of the Year Award nominee. And his wife had a baby boy, Grayson, five weeks ago.

Gould knows better than any of the current Bears just how stoked Chicago is when the Bears are a contender. He was on the 2006 team that reached the Super Bowl (his 49-yard field goal in overtime beat the Seahawks in the divisional game that season). He also was on the 2010 team that lost to the Packers in the NFC Championship Game.

“When I was back [in Chicago] for the bye week or when [Grayson was born], I started to see a lot of that same passion and energy,” Gould said. “You see the positivity that’s going through the city, and as a player, you get excited about that. You feed off that.

“They have the chance to get the second or maybe even the first seed. You talk about how a team has been built — they’re the Monsters of the Midway. These guys are built to make a run. They’re built to compete against everybody else and have a chance, and you’ve seen that because they beat the Rams and they’ve beaten some tough teams.”