Josh Gordon applies for reinstatement by NFL — with stated hope to play for Seahawks again
Josh Gordon has taken the next step to getting his career — and life — back on track.
And he’d love to be back with the Seahawks.
Now it’s up to the NFL. Again.
The 29-year-old former All-Pro wide receiver has applied to the league for reinstatement from his latest indefinite suspension for drugs, as he continues to work out in the Seattle area he feels became his new home last season while playing for the Seahawks. NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported Gordon submitted his reinstatement letter to the NFL on Wednesday.
Pelissero also reported Gordon had a relapse of drug use after his brother died in November.
“Josh had a relapse because of his brother’s death. That set him back,” Gordon’s lawyer, Adam Kenner, told Pelissero. “But since that time he has realized how important it is to him to take the right steps, do what’s proper, and understand how to manage these issues. He’s installed the right team around him to make sure he is on the right path. He understands he’s been given every chance. He looks forward to making the most of this.”
As he did last month, Gordon posted on his Instagram account Thursday a photo of him working out catching passes in the Seattle area. This time it was on a field in Bellevue.
Last month the 2013 All-Pro tagged his workout with Seattle.
His preference and stated hope in seeking reinstatement from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is to play for the Seahawks in 2020.
Why apply now? Seattle’s training camp is scheduled to begin July 28 in Renton.
The native Texan and former star for the Cleveland Browns and New England Patriots has Seattle as his listed home on social media. His postings emphasize that he thinks he’s found a new home, with the city and with the Seahawks. They were his third team in the last three seasons in 2019.
Asked in December, days before the eighth suspension of his career, if he’d had any discussions with the Seahawks about being on their 2020 team, Gordon said: “That’s my hope.
“I think, optimistically, that’s anybody’s goal, any player’s goal, to try to find a place you can call home — in all aspects.
“The culture’s just different. I think it’s something that felt more like a fit, I guess, to me. It’s pretty natural. It’s pretty smooth.
“It’s just my pace, I guess.”
And, yes, the Seahawks would strongly consider (re)welcoming him back.
After quarterback Russell Wilson said he wanted more weapons this offseason, the team added former Patriots and Colts wide receiver Phillip Dorsett this spring to play behind Top 2 receivers Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf.
But Gordon is a different asset.
At 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds, he is a Metcalf-sized target who is more proven, so far, than Seattle’s wowing rookie from 2019. The Seahawks loved what Gordon gave them in his six weeks with them last season, before his latest suspension.
Plus, perhaps foremost, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll embraces second chances and reclamation projects. He loves to help 20-something men turn their lives around. Carroll, 68, has supreme confidence in his players-first, intensely personal principles of dealing with players. He believes his team environment can rehabilitate almost anyone into achieving their maximum potential.
Carroll and general manager John Schneider have pursued any and all possibilities of reinforcing the Seahawks in their 10 years running the team, regardless of background or circumstance. They “checked into” (Carroll’s words last season) possibly signing troubled Antonio Brown, before they signed Gordon.
Carroll said in December the Seahawks were “counting on” Gordon becoming a consistent, deep-ball threat into last season’s playoffs.
“We saw Josh at a really high level, the whole time he was here,” Carroll said then. “The work ethic was one, but his getting along with people and being good to work with and talk to on a regular basis, he was great.”
Signs a reinstatement is coming?
Speculation about Gordon’s chances of reinstatement by the league increased last month when the league conditionally reinstated defensive end Aldon Smith from an indefinite suspension. Smith has had repeated violations of the NFL’s policies on substance abuse and personal conduct. The seventh pick in the 2011 NFL Draft has been out of the league since 2015. He has signed a one-year deal with the Cowboys.
Many believe Gordon should be reinstated because of the fact that entering 2020, 11 states including Washington had legalized marijuana for use by adults. Cannabis was legal for medical purposes in 33 states at the beginning of this year. Plus, the NFL’s new collective bargaining agreement players approved by vote in March includes deemphasizing testing and penalties for marijuana use.
The NFL has eliminated any game suspensions strictly for positive tests of marijuana. The league has reduced its window of test for THC from four months to two weeks at the start of training camp. It also has reduced the number of players it tests for THC and increased the threshold of allowable THC in a player’s tested urine from 35 nanograms to 150.
But the NFL suspended Gordon indefinitely again for violating its policies on both performance-enhancing substances and substance abuse. His troubles in the NFL and in life have gone beyond marijuana.
More than marijuana
Six months ago, Gordon had his first big, down-the-field play since joining the Seahawks via league waivers from New England in the middle of last season. His 58-yard catch in Seattle’s win at Carolina was majestic: a diving, horizontal, parallel-to-the-ground grab of Wilson’s deep pass.
It was vintage 2013 Josh Gordon. It set up Seattle’s third touchdown in three drives to begin an eventual 30-24 victory over the Panthers. And it suggested he could be a huge piece to the Seahawks’ push for the Super Bowl.
But in the locker room in Charlotte, N.C., following that game, Gordon refused The News Tribune’s request for a postgame interview, or even a comment.
“I’m not answering questions today,” Gordon said that December day, politely but firmly.
The next day, his career—forget football, his life—was suddenly in jeopardy. Again.
It was his seventh suspension by the league since Gordon began with the Cleveland Browns in 2012 and the eighth overall. The Browns suspended him one time, a year after his breakout season of 2013 with 1,646 yards and nine touchdowns receiving. It was his second time suspended in 12 months.
He hasn’t played a full season since. He has said he began abusing substances in grade school — Xanax, marijuana, codeine — at a time a kid should not even know what those substances are. He has said as a teen he smoked marijuana daily and drank vodka in a bottle of orange juice during school classes.
The terms of the otherwise confidential NFL drug-testing program include a suspended player having to comply with league-ordered counseling and support meetings. Carroll said in December the team learned upon signing him Gordon also has his own, personal support group he’s depended upon to get reinstated by the league previously.
Gordon’s one-year contract worth $2 million expired at the end of last season. He is an unsigned free agent. Even if he was signed, per terms of his suspension, he cannot be around his team in any capacity, though no Seahawk can be with teammates right now. The coronavirus pandemic has indefinitely closed the team’s facility in Renton.
Gordon knows the league’s testing and suspension system well. Carroll said he and Gordon discussed it in November, and that the coach learned Gordon was an active and understanding participant in it.
“Fortunately, he’ll have the benefit of all the league’s resources to support him and help him,” Carroll said. “We wish the very best in taking care of business.”
“My heart goes out to Josh having to face this again,” Carroll said in December.
“The fact that he’s up against it, and all, it poses a great challenge to him. ...
“We were not aware that there was anything to be concerned about—other than the history, which we knew about.”
It’s a remarkably sad story.
His new Seattle family
Gordon was—and still is—seeking a new life and career re-start in Seattle. He remarked in December how the Seahawks’ felt like family.
He particularly appreciated that while he was in a new city thousands of miles from his two 4-year-old children who were back in Cleveland in November, his new teammates opened their homes to him during Thanksgiving.
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Seattle is amazing,” he said in December. “Yeah, football aside, I would definitely love to live in a place like this.”
Gordon even said his dog, a French bulldog named Franklin, “loves” Seattle.
“He’s used to the cold. At least he should be by now. He stays indoors a lot,” Gordon said. “Got to get him out, hiking.”
Gordon seemed happy, like he was recharging as much as restarting.
“It’s been great, actually,” he said a few days before his latest suspension. “Spent the holiday with some families, some teammates here. They extended their homes to let me to come out for Thanksgiving.
“It’s been a great transition, to be honest with you.”
It’s a transition Gordon obviously wants to resume this summer into fall. And in Seattle.
The next move is up to the NFL.
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 1:15 PM.
