The Big O Face: Cavs-Hawks, Behind the Box Score
April 2, 2016Browns release CB Ifo Ekpre-Olomu
April 2, 2016It is unlikely Josh Gordon is much of a Tom Petty fan, even if the words ring true. I’m talking about “the waiting is the hardest part,” but if the silence is too deafening it could soon turn out to be “don’t come around here no more.”
I promise no more Tom Petty lyrics, but the lack of news on Gordon’s potential return — with another week having gone by — without any kind of resolution is positively obnoxious. On the one hand, it feels abusive to the Cleveland Browns who are trying to formulate an off-season plan. On the other it feels like another black mark on the commissioner’s grade card as disciplinarian.
Gordon made his own bed and he must lie in it now. At the same time, we are talking about a guy who found himself re-instated from the most serious issues, only to see himself drubbed right back off the field due to what most people describe as a few beers on a private jet to Las Vegas.
Again, you can’t defend Gordon very easily as an individual based on his own actions, but I’m the same guy who thinks the commissioner should give up punitive powers completely anyway, for his own good. Point being, if the Browns or any other team wants to give a guy who drank beer on a plane — even stupidly so — a job and he can pass a drug test right now, then why not give them the opportunity to employ him? Why is this so complicated?
Even as I recognize this is about Josh Gordon, this process feels bigger than the player in question.
That’s the crazy thing about Gordon’s predicament. Nobody has any real idea what the NFL is up to right now. Shouldn’t it be an up or down vote? What’s in the black box of decision-making? All we know is there’s been no news and Mike Silver thinks that’s a bad sign.
I believe no news is bad news https://t.co/FfMI7zzKcl
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) April 2, 2016
Daryl Ruiter weighs in as well, but even his additional color creates a vague picture.
Tweeted before re: Josh Gordon: NFL is doing due diligence to ensure he complied fully with terms of banishment; they don't seem conviced
— Daryl Ruiter (@RuiterWrongFAN) April 2, 2016
And so Josh Gordon continues to be a speculative mystery in a Cleveland Browns off-season that would leave Sherlock Holmes, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew looking for help from Agent Cody Banks and the Spy Kids. And for what? So we can keep up an illusuion that the NFL is full of Boy Scouts and perfectly pleasant citizens? That ship has sailed and the top-down moralizing is about as fraudulent as anything we have in modern sports.
Apparently the only ones who can see just how awful it looks are the fans and people without any power to change the situation. So now all we have left to do is sit around and wait as the NFL fulfills whatever process they seem to be executing.
8 Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miU6ruUPZHI
Gotta get ready for OTAs.
https://media.giphy.com/media/u3yFWU7LbcuT6/giphy.gif
I don’t understand why they (NFL) have as long as they want to decide whether or not to reinstate him or not. Should be some sort of timeline here.
Roger Goodell needs a committee report and a week to think about it before he decides if he has to go to the bathroom.
Johnny is. Now all he needs is an invite.
http://memecrunch.com/meme/BDGYR/reinstatement-application/image.jpg?w=630&c=1
Fire God-dell. I am sick of him…