Seahawks revere suspended Josh Gordon and want him back — if NFL will allow his return
Josh Gordon was in the Seahawks’ locker room for just six weeks.
His latest, now-former teammates revere him like he’d been there six years.
Gordon’s gone now. He’s facing the possible end of his career for his eighth suspension for drugs since he entered the NFL seven years ago. But Seattle’s young wide receivers he’d been mentoring until Monday say the 28-year-old former All-Pro with troubles far more important than football will remain a positive influence inside the Seahawks’ locker room.
Regardless of what the league and anyone else thinks of him.
David Moore reached out to Gordon soon after Monday’s news broke: the league indefinitely suspended Gordon, again, for violations of its substance-of-abuse and performance-enhancing drug policies.
“I texted him,” Moore, 24, said at his locker Wednesday. “Texted him and let him know everything. Just telling him that we are going to keep praying for him — and that if he needed anything, he’s still our brother.”
“He’s a WOOTS for life.”
“WOOTS” has been the rallying cry for Seahawks wide receivers dating from now-retired Doug Baldwin to Sidney Rice when he played for Seattle from 2011-13. It stands for “wide outs on the scene,” always being ready to produce for the team and be there for each other.
“Josh,” Moore said, quietly, “that’s my brother.”
To Moore, Gordon’s not the supposed miscreant who has been suspended now seven times by the NFL and once, in 2014, by his Cleveland Browns.
Gordon still hasn’t played a full season since 2012. That was his rookie one with Cleveland. The next year was his All-Pro one with the Browns. He had 87 catches for a league-leading 1,696 yards with nine touchdowns that year. It began with the NFL suspending Gordon for the first time, for the first two games for using PEDs. He played in only five games in 2014 because of his suspension for substance abuse. He missed the entire 2015 and ‘16 seasons for another violation of the NFL substance-abuse policy.
And so it’s gone for a man who’s troubles with substance abuse began with Xanax, codeine and marijuana—when he was in seventh grade.
Gordon has respect of players around league
Yet players on the Browns, the Patriots and now Seahawks loved him. That’s just part of the complexity of Gordon’s situation.
It’s the life tragedy of his addiction. A man seemingly all teammates want to help can’t help himself.
“He’s a really good dude. He doesn’t bother nobody. He minds his business. Never brags. He’s a genuine guy,” New England rookie wide receiver Jakobi Meyers told masslive.com on Tuesday, the day after Gordon’s latest suspension.
Gordon was Meyers’ teammate this season until New England waived Gordon Nov. 1.
“I’m hoping for the best,” Meyers said in Massachusetts.
I mentioned Gordon to John Ursua Wednesday.
The rookie wide receiver’s face and eyes lit up his corner of the Seahawks’ locker room.
“JG!” Ursua said.
“Man, he was, honestly, just one of the coolest guys I’ve met. I had a whole perception of him when he first got here, because all I hear is the things that people write about or say about him. So I had no idea what he was going to be like.
“But having him as my locker neighbor, it was just amazing seeing him prepare, seeing him reach out to the coaches and staying in the meeting room extra just so he could learn the playbook, and then, just a friendship guy, man. He was just such a good guy to have in this locker room.
“It was extremely tough and sad for me to see that happen to him.”
Moore, Ursua and Seahawks second-year receiver Malik Turner all said they didn’t see any signs Gordon was losing his latest fight with his demons.
“I didn’t see anything. I was surprised,” Turner said. “I had no idea.
“It’s unfortunate. I just hope everything is going to be OK with him, and he can play this game, because he was great to it, for it—and for us.”
Moore saw a happy, refreshed Gordon, not a troubled one.
But that’s often part of addition to, the insidious, hidden part.
“No, man,” Moore said. “He came in every day in good spirits. Just seemed like the regular Josh, man.
“It was rough, man. He was a big brother.
“Things happen we can’t control. Sad to see it. All we can do is pray. Pray for the better. Hope for the best. I’m just going to pray him up and love him as much as I can.”
Ursua was Gordon’s locker neighbor tucked into the northeast corner of the Seahawks vast locker room. Gordon had Baldwin’s locker from Nov. 1 when Seattle claimed him off waivers until his suspension Monday. It prohibits Gordon from any contact with anyone with the Seahawks while he is suspended.
Cut off from family of teammates
That is another gut punch in this situation: the terms of his suspension are he cannot have any contact with the Seahawks. He gets cut off from the family and closeness of which Gordon spoke last week while saying “it’s been a great transition, to be honest with you,” for him in Seattle.
“Spent the holiday with some families, some teammates here. They extended their homes to let me to come out for Thanksgiving,” Gordon said last week.
“Oh, yeah, absolutely, Seattle is amazing.”
It’s not just Seattle’s younger players who want Gordon back.
K.J. Wright is the longest-tenured Seahawk. The outside linebacker has been on the team since it drafted him in 2011. He and Gordon sat together on the team bus from the hotel to the stadium for the five games Gordon was with Seattle.
Would Wright welcome Gordon back in the locker room if—and this is a highly questionable if—the NFL eventually reinstates him yet again?
“Yeah,” Wright said quickly.
“I think that in a situation like this you just want to take care of you first, and get it figured out. Because it’s taken over. You just want to get it figured out so you can just be a better person.”
Ursua sounded like he couldn’t believe Gordon got suspended again, that it actually wasn’t going as well as it seemed for him in his six weeks with the Seahawks.
“Not at all,” Ursua said, his voice rising. “I mean, from what I’ve seen it seemed like he wanted to be here. I know he mentioned that, a lot. He talked about how great this organization was and how happy he was, already, in the short time that he was here. So I know that he wanted to be here. And he was getting involved in the offense, slowly and surely, so I’m sure there was nothing bothering him in those sorts of ways.
“Like I said, it’s just been tough to see that happen to such a good guy. And a great player.”
Ursua turns 26 next month. He’s one of the oldest rookies recently in the NFL because he spent two years on a church mission to France, Belgium and Luxembourg. He was out of football for nearly four years. Ursua’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints strongly believes in forgiveness.
Ursua has that for Gordon.
“Absolutely,” he said. “I’m sure people don’t understand everything that he’s gone through. And everyone has a different upraising. So that stuff can tie in to any circumstances he may be going through. So, yeah, my heart is for him. I’m just praying for him. I know how much people can look at this and assume the worst. But, really, he’s just a great guy. A great person.”
Ursua said he spoke with Gordon “a lot” while he was a Seahawk.
“A lot of it was, ‘Just enjoy this moment. Just live it up.’ He spoke of other organizations,” Ursua said. “He spoke of how fortunate I was to be able to start here. He just talked to me about, ‘Just go out, have fun and enjoy the game.’ Because it comes (and can change) at a snap of a finger.
“He was just a great dude to me. It was fun having him here.
‘I’m just...I’m praying for him.”
Turner said “Josh has one tempo in everything he does. He’s a really hard worker.
“His routes are very precise. To see him practice, in walk-throughs and everything he was on his stuff. In everything. I try to take the little things that he does and add them to my repertoire.
“Just an extremely hard worker.”
Moore saw Gordon as a quiet leader, one to emulate, regardless of what continues to haunt his life off the field.
“He taught me a lot about leadership,” Moore said. “He came in and he was real humble. That’s the main thing I took from him, was the humble that he had.
“He is a great player, everybody knows the athlete that he is. And he was just out here being a regular guy, just coming to do your job.
“And I love that.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 7:25 AM.
