Josh Gordon’s Seahawks return isn’t about how he can help the offense. It’s about his life
To be clear: The Seahawks signed Josh Gordon back onto their team a few months ago while he was still suspended by the NFL primarily for his football talent.
That’s the same reason the Patriots traded for him in 2018 and re-signed him for more than $2 million a year later. It’s the same reason the Browns reinstated Gordon four times from four different suspensions from 2014-17.
He’s 6 feet 3, 225 pounds. He can catch footballs as well as almost anybody in the world. He’s been an All-Pro, a Super Bowl champion and a Pro Bowl wide receiver. He can help Russell Wilson and Seattle’s offense as a rugged target that is tough to defend on third downs, which the Seahawks have struggled to covert this season.
But forget all that.
Gordon’s reinstatement this week from his seventh NFL suspension for drugs—and the Seahawks starting him on a five-day COVID-19 testing protocol Friday so he can eventually begin practicing Dec. 21 to play beginning in week 16 against the Los Angeles Rams Dec. 27—are about something far more challenging and important than football.
It’s about addiction.
It’s about a 29-year-old father to two young children who live far away trying to finally restart his life for the better. For the best.
It’s about that man believing he has finally in Seattle has found a place to help him. He’s battled substance abuse that he told GQ in 2017 he began with Xanax, codeine and marijuana—while he was in middle school. He told GQ he played almost all his games while under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he was in college at Baylor, and in the NFL through multiple chances in Cleveland.
Gordon’s reinstatement by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell this week after a 12-month suspension is also about a 69-year-old coach who seeking people needing second chances. In Gordon’s case, a ninth chance.
Pete Carroll believes his program can be the support system Gordon’s life needs. Help that so far, for most of Gordon’s 29 years, has eluded him.
“What I hope happens here is that we apply the same principles that we apply to everybody: that we are trying to figure out how our guys can be the best they can be,” Carroll said before the Seahawks (8-3) will play another game without Gordon Sunday against the New York Giants (4-7).
“In Josh’s case, he’s got some unique circumstances that he brings with him, and things that he’s been through, and all. We are going to try to be an extraordinary support system for him, so that he can aspire and take it wherever he can take it.”
The coach with chic, players-loving ways strongly believes he can coach and mentor any supreme talent into his team culture in Seattle.
He’s embracing the challenge to succeed in helping Gordon stay straight where others have failed—and where Gordon often has failed himself.
“Competitively, it wouldn’t surprise you for me to say I love this opportunity, to try to help him out,” Carroll said Friday. “To try to figure out a way to give him the backing that he needs, give him the toughness that he needs, to be the understanding that he needs, so that he can find a way to really function smoothly and find his way to the best he has to offer.
“He brings a unique challenge--as everybody does. But he’s got his own set of circumstances.
“And we are going to try to be there for him.”
A new home
It was a quintessential Carroll move, the Seahawks claiming Gordon 13 months ago after New England waived him.
Gordon was with Seattle for six weeks in 2019. He played in five games and caught seven passes from Russell Wilson. His were big plays, particularly on third downs. He averaged 19.9 yards on those seven receptions.
Much more than that, Gordon found a new home in Seattle.
He was thousands of miles from his two kids, then age 4, for Thanksgiving 2019. A few of his new Seahawks teammates made sure he didn’t spend that holiday alone.
“It’s been great, actually,” Gordon said in December 2019 of his third team in 14 months. “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.”
Carroll said last winter how quickly and effectively the team’s staff meshed with Gordon’s personal treatment and counseling people. The coach said the Seahawks had a clear and shared understanding for what the receiver needs beyond football.
Gordon, a native of Houston, spoke then of wanting to re-sign with the Seahawks beyond his contract ending after last season, of making his home in the Pacific Northwest.
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Seattle is amazing,” he said 12 months ago. “Yeah, football aside, I would definitely love to live in a place like this.
“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.”
He said even 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.”
His biggest game was his last one. He made a diving, 58-yard catch while parallel to the ground set up the Seahawks’ third touchdown in three drives in their win at Carolina. That game suggested he could be a huge piece to the Seahawks’ offense late last season.
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 day, politely but firmly.
He knew he’d failed a drug test he has to take every week as part of his years in the NFL’s confidential treatment program. The day after that Panthers game commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Gordon indefinitely, again, for violating its policies on both performance-enhancing substances and substances of abuse.
It was the eighth time he’d been suspended in his career, which began with the Browns in 2012. It was his seventh suspension by the league, his second 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 2013, his breakout for Cleveland. He has said he began abusing substances in grade school, at a time a kid should not even know what those substances are.
His attorney told NFL Network Gordon relapsed in November 2019 because his brother died.
“He was going through a lot at the time, to be honest with you,” Wilson said this week. “Those are all personal things.”
Wilson said he has been in regular touch with Gordon throughout his latest suspension.
“I’ve checked on him, just checked on him as a friend, just about life. Making sure that he’s doing well,” Wilson said.
“He seems like he’s doing really well.”
Wilson said he kept checking in because Gordon, in his six weeks in the locker room last year, ingrained himself particularly well with his new teammates.
“He did a tremendous job of really bonding with the guys, fitting in, in the right way,” Wilson said. “He was about the approach. He was studying his play book. He was ready to roll. He made great plays for us, too, at the same time.
“He fit in the right way. He was about the work ethic.”
Plus, as Wilson said: “Anytime in life, I think Coach does a great job giving guys chances.”
Gordon’s return continues the coach bringing in Marshawn Lynch, Percy Harvin, Dion Jordan, Brandon Marshall, even Lendale White and others since Carroll took over the Seahawks in 2010. Time and again he’s added a veteran who’s shown unique physical talent in the league but has been derailed by off-the-field issues.
“It goes back to, my dad taught me that a long time ago. He was a liquor salesman for years and he had all kinds of stories about guys coming and going off his sales force, when he was a sales manager,” Carroll said.
“I mean, at a really young age he said, ‘Guys deserve a second chance.’
“I’ve just held onto that.
“If guys have worked hard, and done the things they have to do, and have the resolve that make you believe that they can give their best shot, I’m more than happy to give guys the opportunity.
“I look for that chance, you are right.”
His chance
Now Gordon is coming back. It’s more than his chance to help the NFC West-leading Seahawks over their final two regular-season games and in the playoffs.
It’s his chance, after eight suspensions, to maximize what he believes is his best support setting yet to get healthy and live well. To succeed each day in his constant struggle.
To maximize his life.
“Hopefully he does it this time the right way,” Wilson said. “And it’s challenging. There’s real things in the world, and there is real challenges in life.
“He’s an amazing receiver. A guy who was great for us last year, made some great plays...But I think more than anything else, (his reinstatement) is a testament, hopefully, to his growth in life.
“You always want to see people overcome. ...I’m rooting for him to overcome. Hopefully this time is better than the last time.
“That’s the reality you pray for.”
This story was originally published December 5, 2020 at 12:02 PM.
