NEWSLETTER
Preparations for Week 2 have begun, as the Bears (and we) get ready to turn a new leaf in Tampa Bay. Unfortunately, the vibes aren’t all that good, because there’s already a belief the Bears will play the Buccaneers short-handed.
Cornerback Kyler Gordon appeared to suffer a hand injury in the second half of the Bears’ Week 1 loss to the Green Bay Packers. And it sounds like it is a serious one, too. When asked to update Gordon’s situation on Monday, Bears Head Coach Matt Eberflus said Gordon was with team doctors and that the team would re-assess the situation and provide updates on Wednesday. Today is Wednesday and I am worried.
Those anxious feelings aren’t leaving any time soon. Especially not after seeing CHGO’s Nicholas Moreano tweet that he is hearing that Gordon could be out for a few weeks because of the hand injury. I’m definitely holding my breath:
Losing Kyler Gordon forces Bears to shake things up
Piecing together a defensive lineup without Gordon is a challenge. It isn’t impossible. But it isn’t something I wanted to do this early in the season.
The Bears should keep Tyrique Stevenson on the boundary. Maybe this feels like throwing a puppy to the wolves, but that’s life in the NFL.
Stevenson plays an aggressive brand of football, which will open him up to rookie mistakes. However, that’s part of the development process and I’ve already talked myself into taking the good with the bad when it comes to developing second-round cornerbacks.
In the slot, the Bears will likely turn to Josh Blackwell or possibly Terell Smith. I wish this defense had better safety depth because I could make a case for giving some of those slot snaps to Eddie Jackson. It wasn’t a stellar Week 1 for Jackson, but we saw him last year thriving in a role where he has deployed in a variety of ways. Defensive Coordinator Alan Williams might want to kick the tires on that idea while Gordon is out.
Gordon is a key piece to the Bears’ defensive puzzle. The hope going into this year was that a healthy secondary could help offset concerns that still reside along the defensive line. Not having Gordon will throw a wrench in those plans. And the longer Chicago’s defense plays without Gordon, the more slippery an already precarious slope becomes for that side of the ball. The NFL is a “next man up” league. But it is also one where the whole needs to be better than the sum of its parts. This feels like one of those situations. If Gordon is unavailable for an extended period, then his teammates at every level of the defense need to pick up the slack. Defensive linemen, linebackers, and fellow members of the secondary need to step their games up. The difficulty level was already turned up, but they’ll need to play through it.
Finding a bright side to this situation feels impossible. There is no way to spin losing your starting nickel cornerback. Especially when he could miss upcoming games against Patrick Mahomes (Week 3 at Chiefs) and Andy Reid or Russell Wilson (Week 4 vs Broncos) and Sean Payton. And I don’t even want to think about what it could be if the Bears are without Gordon for an extended period that could cause him to miss games against when opposing offenses can throw out Mike Evans (Bucs), Terry McLaurin (Week 5 at Commanders), Justin Jefferson (Week 6 at Vikings), Davante Adams (Week 7 vs Raiders). Please come back soon, Kyler. We’re already having nightmares about what an already shaky defense could look like without you.
