Chicago Bears Dud No. 2: Kyler Gordon, CB
This is now three weeks in a row that Kyler Gordon is on the duds list. While by no means should he be called a bust yet, things are not looking great for the rookie corner. Once again, he seemed to be the weak point of the Chicago Bears secondary, even with Kindle Vildor playing the starting boundary corner position. Jaylon Johnson was out against the Texans but the Bears were in a rough position, and it showed.
Gordon has been bad in these first three weeks. He has flashes once in a while and had a couple of pass breakups this week. Still, too many completions are being allowed on him on simple routes. In zone coverage, his awareness of his duties is not high. In man coverage, he seems to not know where his help is, and he gets beaten by less athletic receivers and even tight ends.
Not all of this poor production is on him. Eberflus and Alan Williams are continuing to play Gordon out of the slot corner position, and it is not an easy task for a rookie corner. It seemed he would be able to find success from this spot after his training camp and preseason, but so far, he has failed in his time there.
His outing against the Texans seemed worse than it probably was considering Davis Mills threw two interceptions and no receiver had a huge game individually. It is just that Gordon’s mistakes were very noticeable, and it hurt more to see considering how much the Bears needed him to step up today.
Maybe fans are a bit spoiled because of how good Jaylon Johnson was in his rookie year. We cannot expect Gordon to produce as Johnson did in year one, but we can expect Gordon to fix his mistakes and start to improve. Through three weeks there has not been much progression and it is causing growing concern.