Bears: 5 realistic QB options in the 2020 NFL Draft

Anthony Gordon

Recently I hinted on Twitter about a draft crush that was starting to emerge. Well after his performance over the weekend, albeit it in a loss, I’m a bit more smitten.

Look, I’ve historically discounted quarterbacks coming out of an air raid style offense, as they largely failed to have success in the NFL. However, guys like Patrick Mahomes and Gardner Minshew have caused me to reassess my biases.

In doing so, I have come to view Washington State quarterback Anthony Gordon as a legitimate option for the Bears in the upcoming draft. To get there, though, I have had to discount his gaudy statistics. He’s averaging 423 yards per game with 32 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. However, much of that is due to Mike Leach‘s scheming and hitting wide-open receivers on short routes who run for a lot of yards after the catch.

Therefore, I was hesitant to get too excited, but also eager to see how he would fare on the road against the Oregon Ducks, in a hostile environment, while facing the No. 7 ranked defense in the country, and he passed the test.

First, let’s get the bad out of the way. His pick-six backed up near their own goal line was indefensible, even if they probably should have run the ball on 3rd and 25. However, is other interception in the game came on a beautifully thrown ball, into tight coverage as he was getting hit. He dropped it in the hands of his receiver. Unfortunately, it bounced off the hands of the receiver, then his face mask, and into the arms of the defender.  He also had another beautifully thrown ball on their opening drive which should have been a touchdown, but his receiver dropped it.

That’s a long-winded way of saying the stats don’t tell the whole story, even if he still went for 406 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions against a defense who was only giving up a total of 256 per game. However, he made a number of throws in that game into tight windows, which is what I wanted to see coming from this type of offense. He also has the ability to make throws from a variety of arm angles, which allows him to make throws when he gets off-platform.

Gordon is calm in the pocket, and progresses through his reads very nicely, but is adept at taking off or scrambling to buy additional time.

Finally, Gordon has something Trubisky has lacked thus far in his career — nerves of steel. On the road, against the 11th ranked team in the country, Gordon took the ball from his own 10-yard line with 2:55 left in the game. Everyone in the stadium knew he was going to throw (they had run only 15 times for 40 yards all game).

Nevertheless, Gordon orchestrated a beautiful drive, guiding them 90 yards on 8 plays (7 passes) to take the lead on a touchdown pass on 4th and 3 with just a minute remaining. Unfortunately, the defense could not maintain the lead, and Oregon won on a last-second field goal. Despite the result, Gordon showed me everything I was hoping to see and did it against an elite defense. Consider me firmly in the Gordon camp until further notice.