Kyler Gordon and Michael Penix Jr. just missed playing together for the University of Washington football team, with one leaving Montlake while the other was arriving on the scene.
Penix wouldn't have minded at all if they had never met.
However on Sunday, Gordon, a slot cornerback for the Chicago Bears, introduced himself and enjoyed his most memorable outing as a pro player with all of success coming at the expense of the one-time Husky quarterback and fellow alum.
Making his season debut following a long injury absence, Gordon sacked Penix three times and caused a pair of fumbles to enable the Bears to come up with a 31-23 road victory over the Atlanta Falcons.
His final sack happened with 2:54 left to play to quell a furious comeback in which Penix and the Falcons had put up 16 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to make it a one-score game.
When he didn't have Gordon in face, Penix finished with 19-for-33 passing for 225 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Gordon played for the UW in 2018-21, starting 20 games, while Penix quarterbacked the Huskies in 2022-23 and opened 28 games on the way to the College Football Playoff national championship game.
For Gordon, he came off the physically unable to perform list to play again on Sunday after a calf injury had forced him to miss 20 games over two seasons and created plenty of friction between him and the team.
At one point, the Chicago front office had grown so impatient with his lengthy rehabilitation and lack of availability, it intimated he might have played his final game for the Bears (4-2).
All was forgiven on Sunday afternoon in the largest city of the South when Gordon terrorized a defenseless Penix.
"It is what it is,” Gordon said of his team issues. “I can’t control what someone else says. But, at the end of the day, I’m going to go out there and do my job and to the best of my ability. And be the best player in the league at my spot.”
He played in just three games last year, missed all of the recent training camp and the preseason, and then sat out the first five games of this season.
A second-round draft pick in 2022, Gordon started 35 of 45 games in his first four seasons with the Bears. He had 2.5 sacks entering Sunday's game before more than doubling his career total.
Chicago liked what it saw with its now healthy defensive back continually pestering Penix.
“I feel good about him, whether that’s this week or next week," Bears coach Ben Johnson said. "I do feel good about him being able to contribute to this team and help us out. And there’s a number of ways that he can do that.”
Sacks are a good place to start.
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