Josh Gordon conditionally reinstated by NFL
Gordon is trying again after having his last appeal denied in May.
Josh Gordon’s NFL career has been on the rocks for three years now, but the Cleveland Browns wide receiver is making another attempt at getting back in the league. Gordon was reinstated to the league on a conditional basis Wednesday. He will be able to attend team meetings and participate in individual workouts immediately but won’t have the chance to officially practice with the team until Nov. 20.
“As emphasized at today’s meeting, everyone – including Josh’s teammates and coaches, the Browns’ ownership and organization, the Program professionals and all of us at the league office – want him to have every opportunity to resume his career and to be successful in the NFL,” Commissioner Roger Goodell told the press afterward. “Whether that happens, however, at the end of the day will depend on Josh. His commitment to sobriety and to reaching his goals in football and beyond will determine his success. It ultimately is up to Josh.”
It’s been a long, arduous road for Gordon, who has incredible talent but found his career stalled out due to repeated drug test failures. Gordon last attempted reinstatement in March after missing his second straight season. The attempt was denied by the NFL in May, but Gordon was eligible to try again in the fall.
Gordon last appeared in a regular season game in 2014, where he played only five games after serving a 10-game suspension. He got handed a year-long ban in 2015 and wasn’t eligible to apply for reinstatement until March 2016. Gordon was eventually reinstated by the league and played in the 2016 preseason, but that was the last time he’s been on a football field. After sitting out the first four games as a condition of his reinstatement, Gordon entered rehab and didn’t play at all that season.
Despite the constant disappointments and start-stop nature of his comeback, the Browns weren’t ready to give up Gordon. "We're not in a position at wide receiver to turn down a guy like Josh [Gordon] if we feel like he's settled himself,” GM Sashi Brown told the Akron Beacon Journal in March. "Josh, assuming that he'd play at the level we started to see glimpses of last preseason and certainly when he was in the league before, would be a talent I think no team in the NFL would turn down if he got back in,"
If Brown does make his return, he could immediately slot back in as the No. 1 receiver on a team that lost Terrelle Pryor to free agency. The team’s leading receiver right now is running back Duke Johnson, and the Browns don’t have much depth behind Kenny Britt.
A supplemental draft pick in 2012, Gordon had an electric 2013 performance with 87 catches, 1,646 yards, and nine touchdowns in 14 games. It’s been all downhill from there, and we don’t even know how much Gordon has left after spending so much time on the shelf. But for now, the 26-year-old is giving it one more shot.