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Bears cornerback Kyler Gordon.

The Chicago Bears are counting on the return of their top two cornerbacks to help strengthen their secondary during the 2026 season, but a bit of concern has already emerged about star slot defender Kyler Gordon ahead of OTAs.

In 2025, the Bears spent most of the regular season without either Gordon or two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Jaylon Johnson on the field due to recurring injuries, resulting in an inconsistent secondary that often found itself fielding backups in its starting roles.

Johnson severely injured his groin before training camp, sitting out summer workouts and playing just one game over the first 12 weeks of the regular season. He returned on Thanksgiving against the Philadelphia Eagles, but he did not return to playing his full snap count until the second-to-last game of the season in advance of their playoff run.

Meanwhile, Gordon sat out all but three regular-season games with a myriad of injuries and had two separate stints on the injured reserve list before returning for the playoffs.

Now, it seems that Gordon’s injury troubles have followed him into the 2026 offseason, as The Chicago Tribune’s Brad Biggs reported May 22 that he was not with the team when it began its offseason program and is again dealing with a “soft-tissue injury.”

“And nickel cornerback Kyler Gordon, who sources said wasn’t with the team at the outset of the offseason program, has since been out with a soft-tissue injury,” Biggs wrote Friday. “Gordon missed 14 regular-season games in 2025 and had two stints on injured reserve with groin, hamstring and calf injuries that initially sidelined him in the first week of August.”

Another Injury Would Jeopardize Kyler Gordon’s Future

Coming into last season, Gordon looked like one of Ryan Poles’ best draft picks in his first four seasons as the team’s general manager. The 2022 second-round pick (No. 39) had grown into one of the league’s top nickel defenders in his first three seasons, which earned him a three-year, $40 million contract extension with the Bears in April 2025.

A year later, though, the injuries are putting Gordon’s future in Chicago in jeopardy.

Gordon did not miss much time over his first three seasons with the Bears, but he has still not played a full 17-game slate. He missed three games as a rookie in 2022, four games in 2023 and two games in 2024 due to a variety of injuries, including a broken hand, a concussion and hamstring sprains. That was tolerable until 2025 happened.

Gordon played on a career-low 117 snaps in 2025 — next closest was 645 snaps in 2023 — and dealt with multiple lower-body injuries that impacted his groin, hamstring and calf. The Bears could make peace with that outcome if he showed signs of getting back to full strength in 2026, but his latest soft-tissue injury threatens to derail him again.

The good news is that Gordon’s injury is not overly concerning — at least, not yet — when it comes to projecting for the 2026 season. There are just two weeks left in the team’s voluntary offseason program before mandatory minicamp runs from June 9-11. After that, the team will take roughly a six-week break before the start of training camp.

That’s a lot of time for Gordon to get his body right and get back to full strength again.

Jaylon Johnson Also Not Attending Voluntary Workouts

Gordon is not the only Bears cornerback who has not been in the building with the team through the voluntary portion of their offseason program. Johnson, who made the Pro Bowl in 2023 and 2024, is also not in attendance; however, his absence is expected.

Johnson has rarely participated in the voluntary portion of the Bears’ offseason training program during his previous seasons in Chicago, even after he signed a four-year, $76 million extension with the team in March 2024 following his first Pro Bowl campaign.

He also just married his wife, Janessa Johnson, in the Dominican Republic on May 2, giving him the 27-year-old more incentive to wait until the mandated training starts.

The context is what separates Johnson’s and Gordon’s absences. While the Bears would likely prefer to have their $76 million cornerback in the building as much as possible, Johnson is not currently dealing with an injury that could impact his availability when the team’s mandatory work begins, whereas Gordon’s on-field outlook is still unclear.

Even still, the Bears will need both of them fully healthy in 2026 to make strides.

“I have no doubt that fully healthy, we’ll get what we need to see,” Bears defensive backs coach Al Harris said, via Biggs. “I have no doubt about that at all.”