Ben Johnson isn’t giving much away when it comes to Kyler Gordon, and that silence is starting to tell its own story.
The Bears coach has been plenty revealing on plenty of other subjects. When Johnson wants to open up, he does it plainly, and when he wants to show where he stands, it usually comes through.
That approach has made his comments easy to read on a lot of fronts. With Gordon, though, the message has narrowed to almost nothing.
That’s a shift from June, when Johnson’s tone carried more of a “we just haven’t been able to get to know each other” feel. By the start of training camp, the message was more direct: the Bears’ presumed starting slot corner needs to “get healthy.”
Since then, Johnson has had little to offer on Gordon’s path back onto the practice field. Maybe there’s simply no fresh update to give.
Maybe there’s more going on underneath the surface. Either way, the lack of detail is notable.
After the preseason opener, Johnson was asked about Gordon’s timeline to return to practice and answered with a single word: “unknown.”
That exchange, which came after ESPN’s Courtney Cronin raised the question, lasted just 10 seconds. Johnson also answered an incomplete question more than once as the topic came up again.
When another reporter pressed further with, “What does he (Gordon) do right now?”, Johnson replied, “He’s rehabbing.”
It’s the kind of subject Johnson knows he’ll keep getting asked about. And at this point, he seems to be running out of patience - and out of anything useful to say. Across the last three weeks or so, Johnson has now used about 40 words total on Gordon, which may be the clearest indication yet of where things stand.
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