The Chicago Bears came away with an impressive 30-24 win over the New England Patriots on Thursday night.
The game featured elite performances by both quarterbacks, as Caleb Williams and Drake Maye combined for 629 passing yards and five TDs (although the latter did throw an ugly interception in the end zone). The Bears pressured Maye consistently, but he regularly evaded the extra rushers and found an open receiver.
The Bears did, however, bring him down for two sacks. One of them came via cornerback Kyler Gordon, who already has four over his first 48 snaps. He's proven to be the perfect weapon for Dennis Allen's hyper-aggressive scheme.
Aside from the sack, Gordon also pressured Maye on a few other plays in last night's contest. At first glance, he can often be mistaken for a defensive end (albeit a light one) blistering off the edge.
Apparently, he also wants to put up an edge rusher stat line this season.
Kyler Gordon has his sights set on an NFL record
Unsurprisingly, reporters from the Bears' beat swarmed Gordon in the postgame locker room. They asked him about his sack goal for the season. After some initial hesitancy, he didn't shy away from voicing his atmospheric objective.
"You want me to say that out loud? My goal is ten [sacks], but we're going to see" Gordon said. "DE numbers."
Defensive end numbers is right. No defensive back has ever finished a season with double-digit sacks. Seahawks safety Jamal Adams set the record with 9.5 sacks in the 2020 NFL season.
Despite missing the first four games, Gordon is already well on his way to making history for the cornerback position. Only 12 defensive backs have eclipsed six sacks in a season. Notably, all but two of them were safeties.
Every great defense needs a player that opposing offenses have to gameplan around. Over the first month of the season, the Bears didn't really have that. They've found it over the past two contests, though. Gordon is Chicago's defensive X-factor.
Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen probably isn't surprised to see Gordon take the opportunity and run with it. The cover man was the only player Allen mentioned by name in his introductory press conference. At that time, he called Gordon an "outstanding nickel player" and said he had a vision for how to deploy him.
Now that he's finally healthy, we're seeing that promise come to fruition. It'll be up to Gordon to show how far he can take it.
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