As regular season approaches, Bears rookie CB Kyler Gordon is ‘ready to take it on’

LAKE FOREST – Nothing has fazed Bears rookie cornerback Kyler Gordon.

The rookie doesn’t act like a rookie. His approach is calm, cool, collected, and he can already play multiple positions in the secondary. The team’s top draft pick this year at 39th overall, Gordon is poised to start for this Bears defense right away.

“Honestly, I just expect certain situations and have been preparing for where I want to be and how I want to do it,” Gordon said. “I’m just really ready to take it on and feel confident about it.”

Gordon missed some time early in training camp with an undisclosed injury. He did, however, return to the practice field in recent weeks and played in each of the past two preseason games.

While the plan originally was to have Gordon play boundary corner on the outside, he has shifted to slot corner more and more frequently throughout camp. Having a trusted starter who can play both of those roles could be huge for a defense. When the Bears have five defensive backs on the field, which will be frequently, expect to see cornerbacks Jaylon Johnson and Kindle Vildor on the outside, with Gordon working the slot.

Gordon played the slot frequently in college. The slot corner, or nickel corner, has to be aware of different things than an outside corner and must be prepared to help in run defense. The Bears saw that ability on tape when they were scouting Gordon coming out of Washington. Gordon’s versatility is part of the reason why general manager Ryan Poles never thought Gordon would fall to the Bears at the 39th pick.

Bears defensive backs coach James Rowe said Gordon has been meeting with Bears assistant defensive backs coach David Overstreet II at 7 a.m. most mornings to talk about the intricacies of the slot corner. Overstreet played college football at Missouri in the early 2000s, when current Bears head coach Matt Eberflus served as the Tigers’ defensive coordinator.

Most NFL teams look at the nickel corner as a starting position, even if he isn’t technically a part of the team’s base defense.

“You’re in nickel a lot more than base these days,” Rowe said. “That’s an important position. That’s really a starting position now. We know we need a good player that has good instincts and is good around the ball. It’a almost half corner and a little bit of linebacker.”

Gordon said the Bears’ coaching staff has been easy to work with. Players have been buying into Eberflus and his HITS system. Eberflus spoke last week about how the coaching staff grades the players on every aspect of HITS (hustle, intensity, takeaways and smarts), even the ones that seemingly are immeasurable.

With intensity, for example, they will grade a defender on how hard he’s running toward the football during the last 3 yards of a tackle. Did he meet the ball carrier or let the ball carrier come to him?

Or with a pass rusher, did he try to strip the football on a sack?

“Are you really stripping it every play?” Eberflus said. “Not just sticking your hand out there to appease me, but are you really going after it? We coach that every single play. It’s all measured, so you can coach details every single play.”

Gordon seems to embody that from a defensive back standpoint. He got his hands on the football frequently during the last week of training camp. He had a pass breakup in Saturday’s preseason game, too, in addition to three tackles.

Gordon called defensive coordinator Alan Williams “fanatical” about the way he goes about creating a standard for the players. That’s something players can appreciate.

“He’s just very persistent on that,” Gordon said. “Keeps engraining it into the whole culture and the whole system. That’s good for us to always have that constant chipping at it to get that 1% better each day.”