What’s next for the mercurial wide receiver?
For those of you who listened to The Underdog podcast posted Wednesday evening, you heard Chris Horwedel and I discuss the potential for Josh Gordon to be reinstated as early as Friday. Do I think Roger Goodell will be a sensible human being and do it in a professional, swift, and honorable manner? Absolutely not. But your guess is as good as mine so I don’t want to write an article dissecting what I think the Commissioner will do.
What I do want to do is remind you all of exactly how good Josh Gordon was when he was on the field. Whether we look back at this article as what might have been or the rise of an Orange and Brown Phoenix is the mystery.
Josh Gordon only gave us 3 years of stats before he entered the NFL indefinite suspension abyss. His rookie year was solid, but not outstanding, and his third year was only 5 games long due to a 10 game suspension for more substance abuse problems and a 1 game suspension by the Browns for violation of team rules. He has been failing drug and alcohol tests ever since. But his second year in the league, 2013, which mind you, he was only able to play in 14 games of due to his initial substance abuse violation as a pro, is our focus today.
Josh pulled in 87 receptions for 1,646 yards, which is 18.9 yards per catch and 117.6 yards per game, to go along with 9 TDs.
That per-game average was good for 6th best of all-time in a single year. You know some of the other receivers in NFL history never had that many average yards per game over the course of a season? Julio Jones, Jerry Rice, Antonio Brown, Isaac Bruce, Odell Beckham, Marvin Harrison, Randy Moss; the list goes on and on.
And those 1,646 total receiving yards, again in only 14 games, is more than any single season total from either Randy Moss (1,632) or Michael Irvin (1603).
During Weeks 12 and 13 of the season, Gordon became the FIRST receiver ever in NFL history to have back-to-back games with at least 200 receiving yards when he went off for 237 and 261.
And after a season like that it is no surprise he made the Pro Bowl and was named first-team All-Pro along with Calvin Johnson.
So yes, if Josh Gordon is reinstated the Browns have to give him another shot and get him a helmet and pads as fast as they can. When he’s on the football grass, not the other grass, he is arguably the best receiver in the NFL. Give him a shot Hue. Because let’s be real, one more failed test and Roger Goodell probably won’t even let him buy NFL tickets let alone strap up on Sundays for any team in the league. He may even blackball him from the Arena League and the CFL while he is at it.
So here’s to one more day in the sun, cheers Josh. Check that, ‘cheers’ was a bad choice of words, have a Gatorade Josh and let’s do this thing.
