What we learned from the Bears, including Gordon’s bigger potential role

Sunday’s game provided a glimpse into Dennis Allen’s vision.

When the Bears hired Allen to be their defensive coordinator in early 2025, shortly after Ben Johnson took over as coach, Allen laid out a vision that included cornerback Kyler Gordon as a cornerstone piece.

Gordon’s versatility made him a player whom Allen wanted to have on the field as much as possible. Since then, injuries have had other ideas.

Gordon made his long-awaited return in Sunday’s 31-23 win over the Atlanta Falcons, sacking quarterback Michael Penix Jr. three times and forcing two fumbles in his first game since January.

The 26-year-old missed much of the offseason program and all of training camp with a calf injury. This was after he played in only three regular-season games in 2025 plus the two playoff games.

Gordon played just 17 snaps on defense Sunday, yet he made an outsized impact.

“I certainly didn’t go into the game thinking he was going to come away with three sacks and two caused fumbles,” Allen said Monday.

Not even Allen could’ve predicted that.

Gordon rushed the passer eight times, per NFL Next Gen Stats, creating five pressures, all of which came in less than 2.5 seconds. His speed off the edge clearly took the Falcons by surprise.

Johnson, in his weekly radio interview with WMVP-AM 1000, credited Allen for putting Gordon “in a great spot.” Allen saw the player he thought he was getting when he took the job.

“He’s got outstanding quickness and he’s really elusive,” Allen said. “He just has a knack for (blitzing) and an innate ability to find the quarterback.”

The Falcons may have been unprepared for it, but the rest of the league is on alert now. The New England Patriots undoubtedly will have a plan in place for the nickel blitz when they see No. 6 on the field Thursday night at Soldier Field.

Gordon spent the last three weeks at practice working to get back into game shape, but the Bears weren’t going to throw a full game’s worth of snaps at him off the bat.

Assuming his calf responds well to the workload, he could see his involvement continue to increase in the coming weeks, though maybe not this week with a quick turnaround.

“We’ll see how things play out moving forward,” Allen said. “It was really a limited role last week. I would expect something very similar (against New England).”

Here’s what else we learned Monday.

Who’s up next if Jonah Jackson is sidelined?

Jackson injured his hip Sunday, and Johnson declined to say much in his radio interview Monday morning.

Jackson is a key cog in the offensive line. He hasn’t missed a start at right guard since joining the Bears in 2025. He was remarkably healthy last season after injuries limited him to four games in 2024 with the Los Angeles Rams.

“Jonah brings so much to our offense, just his mindset, his mentality, the play style,” offensive coordinator Press Taylor said. “I mean, he’s everything we want to be about. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve shown clips of our identity and what it looks like, and it just so happens to be the ball’s running behind Jonah and Darnell (Wright), those two in combination.

“Obviously Darnell gets a lot of notability. But it’s not lost on us that Jonah is usually right there in combination with him on a lot of these plays.”

Second-year pro Luke Newman filled in after Jackson exited Sunday’s game and played 27 snaps on offense. Newman has appeared in 15 career games with most of his action coming on special teams.

The Bears have backup Jordan McFadden available too. McFadden started at left guard in the divisional playoff game against the Rams last season when the Bears moved Joe Thuney out to left tackle.

“We’ll see where Jonah’s at and if he’s got a chance to play on Thursday or not,” Taylor said, “but we are excited about some of the depth we have behind those guys as well on the inside.”

Tyson Bagent remains the backup QB.

For the first time in more than a month, the Bears didn’t need their backup quarterback Sunday. Caleb Williams played the entire game. They hope that continues to be the case.

But it was notable that Tyson Bagent was the backup Sunday, while Case Keenum was inactive as the emergency third quarterback.

In the days leading up to the game, Johnson wouldn’t commit to either being the backup if Williams returned from his hamstring injury. Both started games in Williams’ absence, and both struggled in Week 5 against the Green Bay Packers.

The coaching staff elected to stick with Bagent as the No. 2, even after he threw two interceptions against the Packers.

“That’s something that we’ll always try to do what we feel like is best for the team given the week, and we’ll have a lot of conversations about it and where it fits,” Taylor said. “But we’re all on board with the decision we all decided to make in that sense.”