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Bears Already Find the Signing of Cam Lewis to Be Fortuitous

Kyler Gordon's OTAs absence due to another soft-tissue injury is less of a Bears issue because it's not regular season and now they have slot cornerback help.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears cornerback Cam Lewis brings extreme versatility to the Bears secondary and already the former Bills DB must display it.
Bears cornerback Cam Lewis brings extreme versatility to the Bears secondary and already the former Bills DB must display it. | Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Perhaps the Bears feared this would happen.

When they went about accumulating players for the secondary this year, they put an emphasis on versatility. Now, neither cornerback Jaylon Johnson nor slot cornerback Kyler Gordon are part of their offseason work. The versatility of players acquired might be needed sooner than anyone expected.

The Bears haven't begun working offense against defense at OTAs. That begins when they ramp up to phase 3 next week, but Tribune Bears beat writer Brad Biggs reports a soft tissue injury is keeping Gordon from participating in what they've been doing. That's been conditioning since early April and then some individual drill work. As for Johnson, he normally does his own thing in offseasons and no one can be certain what that means.

Johnson could show up for the on-field team work next week. Then again, who knows?

Neither absence is life or death now, but Gordon's is annoying because of how often he sat out last season and in other years.

Gordon played only three regular-season games last year, missed two the previous season, four in 2023 and three as a rookie. Soft tissue injuries didn't account for all of his problems but last year the groin injury he suffered in preseason lingered into the regular season and then was aggravated. He didn't become available until Week 5, played in two games, went out six weeks and on IR, then came back to play the Eagles and the injury came back. He didn't play again until the playoffs but did contribute greatly in both the win over the Packers and loss to the Rams.

Cam Lewis front and center

During free agency, one of the first moves the Bears made was signing former Bills defensive back Cam Lewis. He played both safety and cornerback, but with the Bills the last two years the bulk of his work came as a slot cornerback. He played safety when Buffalo went to a three-safety dime look, and backd up at safety. In his career, he has 493 plays in the slot and 131 at outside cornerback.  He played free safety 330 plays and in the box 394, but some of the box snaps were at nickel. He's not a box safety at 5-foot-9, 183 pounds, but is ideal size for a cornerback.

"He can fill in a lot of spots and play a lot of spots at a high level," safeties coach Matt Giordano said. "I mean, who wouldn't want that, right? So we're excited to have him. We're excited what he brings to the room and to the DB room. And yeah, we're excited to start working with him."

Even rookie fourth-rounder Malik Muhammad was being lined up as both outside and slot starting with i camp. Cannon Matthews, who handles slot cornerbacks, had interviewed Muhammad at the combine and was impressed with his intelligence regarding scheme, a prerequisite for the position.

"So like all the different things that you have to handle inside from a communication standpoint, seeing a little bit more than you do just outside (cornerback), we feel pretty confident about that," Matthews said. "And just his movement ability. We'll see once we get to practice but we think there's enough there that it would translate.

"Change of direction, the burst out of breaks, I think there's enough there if and when we have in there that he would succeed."

Breaking ground for Muhammad

Muhammad, the former Texas standout, admitted it's foreign territory.

"Well, you know, it is something different because I didn't play too much of nickel in college, just on matchups," he said during rookie camp. "But it's been challenging for sure, just learning the whole defense, knowing where all the pieces go, knowing where your help is, learning the insides and outs of it. It's been new, but it's been fun."

Gordon's health was an issue last year to the extent that the team needed to go out and sign C.J. Gardner-Johnson as depth at slot cornerback.

They have been unwilling to lean on Josh Blackwell in that role. The old scheme seemed suited to his abilities with more zone coverage.  Regardless, with Lewis and Muhammad the position is backed up well.

If worse came to worst, they could even slide free agent safety acquisition Coby Bryant into the slot. Almost all of his plays on defense — 740 of them — in the first two years at Seattle came as a slot cornerback, but now he's a starting saety.

The Bears are in solid shape to handle Gordon hiccups as aggravating as they might be considering his injury past.

As for Johnson, his absence and how well he has come back from last year's groin surgery, more will be known at next week's OTAs.

That is, provided he does attend.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.