Bears rookie cornerback Kyler Gordon had his “welcome to the NFL” game in Sunday night’s loss to the Packers.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers targeted Gordon early and often, as he should’ve, during the game, and it was just a brutal outing by Chicago’s top rookie draft pick.
Gordon allowed 10 catches on 13 targets for 162 yards and a touchdown against the Packers. And it’s certainly a performance he’d like to forget.
So what was coach Matt Eberflus’ advice to the young rookie after getting cooked by Rodgers?
“It’s everything I say to every young player that I’ve ever played that’s gone through these moments: There’s going to be ebb and flow over the course of a rookie season, and that’s the way it is,” Eberflus said, via Sun-Times. “It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with a guy that’s rookie of the year or not, there’s going to be those things.
“And what you tell them is ‘Hey, take one experience at a time and put it in your file.’ You have to learn from that. So go back and look at all the plays that you made, all the plays that you want to correct and then put them in a file. . . . And say, ‘What should I have done?’ And put those to memory. And make sure you study those things and visualize those things as you go during the course of this week coming up, so you can make those corrections. Because a good pro doesn’t make the same mistake twice.”
For Gordon, he’s looking to use his poor showing as a learning experience, especially going up against one of the best to ever do it in Rodgers.
“There’s definitely a lot of things that I want to do better,” Gordon said, via NBC Sports Chicago. “I know there’s more plays out there that I know that I can make. It’s really just a learning experience for me to take from it and go back and learn from it.”
He’ll get a chance to do that when the Bears host the Texans on Sunday.