5 Chicago Bears that have failed through the first quarter of the season
By Ryan Heckman
Chicago Bears rookie cornerback Kyler Gordon has failed to live up to expectations early on
All rookies typically go through growing pains in any sport. Adjusting from college, or whichever previous level of competition they played, is not an easy task. For Kyler Gordon, coming into the NFL looked like a doable situation. Sure, growing pains were expected, but Gordon was one of the best there was in all of college football coming out of Washington.
Through four weeks, though, Gordon has looked completely lost. Whether it’s learning this defensive scheme or adjusting to the speed of the NFL, Gordon is no where near ready to live up to his second round billing. He’s been beaten by every wide receiver to line up across from him, and in several cases, he’s been beaten badly.
Thus far, Gordon has allowed 20 receptions on 27 targets (74 percent catch allow rate), for a total of 344 yards, which is over 16 yards per catch. He’s also allowing an opposing quarterback rating of over 140 right now. Moral of the story? If you’re an opposing quarterback, go ahead and target this kid, because chances are, you’ll complete the pass.
That Green Bay game — oh, that game again — was an embarrassment for the rookie. He was targeted 13 times and gave up 10 catches for 163 yards and two touchdowns. There weren’t many times Aaron Rodgers wasn’t targeting Gordon on that night.
The good news is, he can’t play much worse and there is only “up” to go from here.