The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting that Gordon aggravated a hamstring in a Friday practice and showed up today "Tardy and Not Himself" and seeming to be on "the verge of relapsing".
Since I am neither there or a drug counselor, I'll refrain from speculation on the behavior and the reasons and stick to football.
I can't blame the Browns for the decision.
Josh Gordon has received every break that you can think from the Tom Heckert regime to Joe Banner to Sashi Brown and even one final chance with John Dorsey and he still cannot seem to get things right.
As always, all people have flaws and just because you are gifted on the field ( look at the final TD catch that he would make as a Brown last week vs Pittsburgh) certainly does not mean that you have the same gifts in other areas of your life.
Nonetheless, talents such as possessed by Gordon tend to be given opportunities for redemption that few of us in the average world would come close to receiving and it's rare that the story ends well, no matter how many of us wish for it and how many puff pieces are written and televised about the process of rehabilitation.
And I'll even go you one better if you've got the nerve (I've been waiting 11 years to get that Jan Berry song lyric in the blog)- Dorsey might have been brilliant for announcing the intent to release rather than actually doing so.
If someone (and it's all over Twitter at this time that several teams are interested) wants to give the Browns something, even if it's one of those seventh-round draft picks that the Browns seem to be collecting of late, something beats nothing.
Just for that maneuver that gives the Browns a chance of getting something, John Dorsey gets plenty of credit and being that someone is always out there that believes that they have the magic potion to change a person that doesn't always want to be changed, one never knows what they could bring back.
I'd be thrilled with a day three pick that could escalate higher if the acquiring team is able to patch Gordon together enough to reach some stipulated statistical levels and if that happens, that's all due to John Dorsey.
However, the Browns could be faulted for not doing enough to be prepared for such a circumstance.
I've heard a few points tonight on this.
One was that you cannot fix everything in one offseason and that's true.
However, you also cannot spend another season doing what past regimes have done- counting on Josh Gordon and being screwed over when he messes things up either.
If Antonio Callaway can keep his past problems in the past, he could be a player that helps offset the loss of Gordon, but again you are asking a player with issues to not have issues, so I'm not tremendously comfortable with that either.
Another talked about culture change and that it is needed.
While I agree on the need and boy, has that phrase has become vastly overused in sports, what I wonder about is would John Dorsey be so quick to cut ties with a player that he brought in?
Dorsey was known for gambling on questionable character players in Kansas City and did again with Antonio Callaway, so is it any player or just players Dorsey didn't bring in and which he doesn't have the personal investment in?
That's the part that I'll be interested in watching over the Dorsey term.
In the end. Josh Gordon was the type of the talent that teams drool over and talent-wise, he might have been the most talented physical receiver in the history of the Cleveland Browns.
However, outside things were more important than playing football and the Browns didn't have the key to solving those problems to keep him on the field as a productive player.
Browns fans will have memories of a few flashes of brilliance and to paraphrase for the athletically inclined the classic poem by John Greenleaf Whittier "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these- What might have been!"
Back later with Buckeyes in Texas and GGG-Canelo II
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