NFL reportedly reinstating Josh Gordon. Seahawks’ Pete Carroll still fully supports him
Pete Carroll agrees Josh Gordon deserves another chance.
And the veteran coach said Friday he’s always welcoming the former All-Pro wide receiver back to the Seahawks for a third time — if the opportunity arises.
The chances of that increased greatly Friday.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has decided to reinstate the 30-year-old Gordon from his eighth suspension for drugs, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported.
“We are grateful that the NFL appreciates the work that Josh put in and now he has earned another opportunity to be part of this league,” Gordon’s agent Zac Hiller said, per Schefter. “We are proud of Josh, and I know all the fans can’t wait to see him on Sundays.”
Gordon could become eligible to play as early as next week, Schefter reported.
Gordon last played in the league for the Seahawks, in December 2019.
Seattle coach Pete Carroll didn’t sound as if he’d heard the news of Gordon re-entering the league when he talked to reporters following his team’s practice Friday. He and the Seahawks then boarded their jet bound for their game Sunday at Minnesota.
“I’m not going to say much about that. I hadn’t heard all that, yet,” Carroll said.
“But I’ve always thought a lot of Josh. I kind of feel for him. He’s been a local kid, as well, he’s been around here in the area and stuff (training). We’ll see what happens. He’s been — just like everybody, he deserves another chance. And hopefully that’s what’s going on.”
Gordon said in December 2019 he believed he had found a new home and new start on life in Seattle and with the Seahawks, who signed him following the New England Patriots waiving him because of his problems. Gordon was on the Seahawks’ active roster for six weeks that 2019 season.
What’s happened
Gordon hasn’t played in the NFL since Dec. 15, 2019, for the Seahawks at Carolina. He had his only big, down-the-field play since joining the Seahawks that day. 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’ offense.
But the day after that game, Goodell suspended Gordon indefinitely for violating its policies on both performance-enhancing drugs and substances of abuse.
Gordon’s lawyer, Adam Kenner, told NFL Network Gordon had a relapse following the death of his brother.
That suspension lasted 12 months. It lasted through the Seahawks signing him to a new contract in September, 2020, with the belief he’d be reinstated to play soon. That didn’t happen until Goodell conditionally reinstated him Dec. 3, 2020, to practice with the team.
“I’m rooting for him to be able to overcome,” Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson said in December. “I hope this time is better than the last time.”
Then, the week he was supposed to play for Seattle against the Rams last Dec. 27, Gordon ran afoul of the conditions for his reinstatement with the league. The NFL put him back on its restricted list, allowing him to attend team meetings but not practice or play.
All a league spokesman would confirm to The News Tribune in late December was that Gordon failed to fulfill the requirements of his conditional reinstatement.
The Seahawks released Gordon this offseason so he could sign a contract with the new Fan Controlled Football league streamed live on Twitch, the world’s leading online gamer platform.
Carroll was asked Friday if he told Gordon upon releasing him March 4 that the coach and the Seahawks would welcome him back to the team if Goodell and the NFL ever reinstates him.
“I’ve never not talked about that with Josh,” Carroll said. “I’ve always been on that topic for him.
“Sorry, I don’t have much information to say much with, at this point. But I’ve always felt that way.
“So, we’ll see what happens.”
The fit
At 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds, he is a DK Metcalf-sized target who is more proven, so far, than Seattle’s wowing third-year pro. The Seahawks loved what Gordon gave them in his six weeks with them in 2019.
Foremost, Carroll embraces second chances and reclamation projects. He loves to help 20-something men turn their lives around. Carroll, 70, has supreme confidence in his players-first, intensely personal principles of leading. 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 12 years running the team, regardless of background or circumstance. They “checked into” (Carroll’s words in 2019) possibly signing troubled Antonio Brown, before they signed Gordon that season.
Days before he got suspended in December 2019, Gordon said he’d like to play for Seattle for as long as he could see. 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, 2019, his new teammates opened their homes to him during that Thanksgiving.
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Seattle is amazing,” he said at his locker in the Seahawks facility in Renton days before his last NFL game.
“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.”
The league has suspended him eight times since Gordon began with the Cleveland Browns in 2012 and the eighth overall. The Browns suspended him once, a year after his breakout season of 2013 when he had 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 — 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 2019 the Seahawks learned upon signing him Gordon also has his own, personal support group he’s depended upon to get reinstated by the league previously.
So the systems seem to be in place for Gordon to return to the Seahawks.
As Carroll said Friday, “we’ll see.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2021 at 2:43 PM.
