Seahawks lose Josh Gordon but Gordon loses so much more

The Seahawks announced Monday that Josh Gordon will be suspended once again. While losing Gordon is bad, for Gordon the human being it is much worse.

For the last few weeks, I have been shaking my head that the Seahawks were not using Josh Gordon more. He catches the ball with ease and made some important third-down conversions and then on Sunday against the Panthers he had an incredible catch on a 59-yard gain. Gordon potentially is a great player for Seattle. But Gordon realistically is struggling as a human being.

Gordon has been suspended five times in his eight NFL seasons. He missed two full seasons while suspended for drug abuse issues, whether they be performance-enhancing or marijuana or something else. He began his career with the Browns, then the Patriots gave him a chance and he played 17 games for them and then the Seahawks picked up Gordon in 2019 and he has played five games.

To be fair, if the two teams giving a player a chance at re-starting their career are the Patriots and Seahawks and then that player flutters out even after being given a chance by those two teams then that player may not need another chance at making a career of playing professional football.

Maybe Seattle had a feeling about Gordon. He seemed ill-used in a Seattle offense that could have, well…used Gordon. He picked up valuable third downs and showed the ability to beat defenders deep. But he only had 11 targets in five games. Gordon caught 7 of those for 139 yards. If all were perfect, Gordon would have been a valuable member of the Seattle football team.

But all is not perfect for Gordon. He needs help, and I don’t mean that to sound dismissive. Anyone with the mental issues he appears to have needs to have help. Maybe someone will say, “Gordon was given a gift and he has thrown it away on drugs.” Maybe that is true and maybe it isn’t. But I don’t care if Gordon’s gift was an ability to make paper planes better than anyone else in the universe. As a human being, I hope Gordon finds the individual assistance he needs to make the rest of his life better, whether that ever be as a member of the Seahawks again or not.