Why Seahawks signed back Josh Gordon while NFL says he’s still suspended
The NFL has no comment on reinstating Josh Gordon.
Pete Carroll says the Seahawks haven’t gotten any confirmation from the league that commissioner Roger Goodell has decided to end the former All-Pro wide receiver’s seventh NFL suspension for drugs.
The league’s official transactions for Thursday stated “remains on reserve/suspended by Commissioner.”
So why did Carroll, after staying in contact with the exiled Gordon for month through this offseason, and general manager John Schneider decide to sign Gordon to Seattle’s roster Thursday? Why not before training-camp practices began Aug. 12, since a suspended player can practice during the preseason? Why not next week, after the initial 53-man roster must be set, when Gordon could still theoretically come in and play in the opening game Sept. 13 at Atlanta?
“Whoa,” Carroll said, jokingly following the final practice of training camp later Thursday, “you think there’s a little story, a backstory here, huh?
“John was really orchestrating this, and we tried to do it as well as we could possibly do it. And the timing came down to this time frame, right here. And, again, we don’t know exactly how this is going to roll out. But we thought that this was the best time to do it.
“We’ll see what happens. We are all kind of keeping our finger crossed that he gets the chance to play here soon. ... We have no word from the league yet.”
Maybe so. But Gordon’s reinstatement now seems inevitable. The Seahawks would not be signing a player they can’t play. Not now.
His path back
The team made official its signing of Gordon, 29, before Thursday’s practice. He did not participate in that.
He already knows Seattle’s offense. He was in it for five games, seven catches and an average of 19.9 yards per reception last season for the Seahawks. Then the league suspended him in early December. The NFL announced he had again violated terms of its policies on substances of abuse and performance-enhancing drugs.
Gordon applied to Goodell for reinstatement in June.
After Gordon’s agent revealed his client’s deal with the Seahawks, The News Tribune asked the NFL’s chief spokesman for Goodell if the commissioner had made a decision on Gordon’s reinstatement.
“We are going to decline comment,” NFL vice president of communications Brian McCarthy told the TNT.
This is the eighth time Gordon’s been suspended in his career, which began with the Cleveland Browns in 2012. This is his seventh suspension by the league, his second within in 12 months. The Browns suspended him once. That was a year after his breakout season with 1,646 yards and nine touchdowns receiving.
He hasn’t played a full season since. He has said he began abusing substances in grade school.
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 through the playoffs in January.
In the locker room in Charlotte, N.C., following that December game, Gordon refused the TNT’s request for a postgame interview, or even a comment.
“I’m not answering questions today,” Gordon said that day, politely but firmly.
The next day, his career — forget football, his life — was suddenly in jeopardy. Again.
A hard road
In June, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported Gordon had a relapse of drug use in November after his brother died.
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 and in 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 Gordon also has his own, personal support group he’s depended upon to get reinstated by the league previously.
The receiver said late last fall he felt he’d found a new home in Seattle after New England released him following 17 games played there over parts of the 2018 and ‘19 seasons. He felt a welcoming vibe from Carroll, Schneider and inside the team’s locker room.
He said in December, just before the league suspended him again, that 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.
The native Texan stayed in the Seattle area and posted workouts from it during the offseason. Some of those workouts were with Seahawks players.
He has Seattle as his listed home on social media.
Asked in December, days before the suspension, 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.”
Now he’s back.
His fit
After 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.
Gordon is a different asset.
At 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds, he is a Metcalf-sized target. Yet he 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.
Perhaps foremost, 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 intensely personal principles of dealing with players. He believes his team environment can rehabilitate almost anyone into achieving their maximum potential.
Carroll and 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.
“Josh’s experience with us was really positive,” Carroll said Thursday. “He worked really hard. Studied hard. Came through when he had his chances in games. Made some incredible plays. ...
“I have been in contact with him, some, over the offseason and, you know, just to keep track of what’s going on, and all. Before, and in the time that we have communicated, I’ve seen nothing but a guy that really wants to make a life of this NFL experience. He wants to do something with it, in the worst way. He’s worked really hard with it, worked out with our guys a lot in the offseason. They would kind of keep me updated on how that was going, and I would get news updates from Josh.
“He’s just done everything that he could have done. There’s been no issues, no problems, nothing. I know people at the league office, they know Josh pretty well, and they hold him in a high regard for all that he’s been through. And it speaks to the character. Because he’s had issues, he’s had issues.
“He’s been an terrific young man in all of our exchanges. So I’m really pleased to have a chance to give him an opportunity again, and see if he can get back in the league and get going.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2020 at 4:10 PM.
