Chicago Bears place Kyler Gordon on IR, practice squad call up Greg Stroman may start

The Chicago Bears placed Kyler Gordon on the injured reserve. This will mean that he is going to miss, at a minimum, the next four games. That will be Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Denver and Washington. The team made a corresponding move of calling Greg Stroman up from the practice squad.

Chicago Bears place Kyler Gordon on IR, practice squad call up Greg Stroman may start

The team may need Greg Stroman to start this weekend, which is a high rise from the practice squad. However, the backup slot cornerback Josh Blackwell is missing time right now with a hamstring injury. Blackwell missed the entire preseason with the same injury.

He was not expected to get on the field, but it did not take him long to re-tweak that issue once he did get on. That is not a surprise, given the lack of practice. Still, Blackwell has hardly practiced in about a month, and now he is dealing with a hamstring injury. Asking him to start this week is starting to look questionable as well.

So, the team needs Greg Stroman to not just come up from the practice squad for depth but to potentially start.

This is a pretty significant development when you look at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Chris Godwin has a 58% slot rate for his career, and last year he was in the slot on 73% of his routes. He was only in the slot for about 46% of the routes last week, but the Bucs have to see that Greg Stroman is starting and think it is an area to attack.

So, Greg Stroman is not only getting called up from the practice squad. He is going to start, and he is going to see a lot of Chris Godwin. For Stroman, this is a chance to prove himself. He has had a long track record of injury issues but has finally been healthy. Now, he finally has a chance to prove himself.

What will see this weekend, and will he have to start for more than this week, considering the hamstring of Blackwell could take time to come back from?