DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Report: NFL denies Josh Gordon's reinstatement

Tim Montgomery says Josh Gordon still in rehab but hopes to be reinstated soon: 'He's coming'

Updated on September 12, 2017 at 7:06 PM Posted on September 12, 2017 at 7:04 PM



By Mary Kay Cabot, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Tim Montgomery, the former Olympic Gold medalist and world-record holder who's been working with Josh Gordon, said the Browns receiver is still in rehab but hopes to have his indefinite drug ban lifted soon after he gets out on Sept. 21st.

"He's coming,'' Montgomery told cleveland.com. "I think he's going to be there this season.''

Montgomery, who owns N.U.M.A. Speed in Gainesville, Fla., said Gordon checked himself back into rehab on June 21st in the hopes that a 90-day stint would be enough to convince the NFL to let him back in the league.

It's Gordon's fourth known trip to rehab, and he's set to be released in a little over a week.

"He's been clean, so we're hoping after 90 days he's reinstated and they put him back in the league, which it looks like they're going to do that,'' said Montgomery.

Gordon's bid for reinstatement was denied May 11, but the NFL told him he could re-apply again in the fall. The NFL declined comment Tuesday because of the confidential nature of the substance abuse program.

But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will proceed with caution given that Gordon has been suspended for 43 of his last 48 games and has faltered each time he's been let back in, including last season on a conditional basis.



The Browns will also have to decide if they want him on the team.

"We care first and foremost in the league about the young man and that's where the focus will remain until we get to that point,'' Browns head of football operations Sashi Brown said last month.

But Montgomery is convinced that the NFL will find a truly rehabbed Gordon this time around.

"From what I've seen, he's in a different place than what he was six, seven months ago,'' said Montgomery. "He's come a long, long way from when we first started working together.''

Montgomery specializes in working with athletes who have troubled pasts like his own. He was stripped of his records in 2005 after he admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs, and served four and half years in prison for a check fraud scheme and for selling heroin.

Montgomery turned his life around and now runs N.U.M.A. Speed, which stands for "never underestimate my ability.''

Gordon moved to Gainesville to live with his business manager Michael Johnson, who knows Montgomery's partner from college. They paired Gordon with Montgomery, who went to work on Gordon's mind as well as his body.



"Josh feels like he's been let down by the people closest to him,'' said Montgomery. "Where Josh comes from, marijuana is considered like a cigarette. That's just his mentality. Josh has been tossed around. He goes to college and he gets kicked out. Then he goes to the NFL and he gets kicked out. Josh feels like he's been punished repeatedly for something everyone else is doing.''



Montgomery said Gordon has floundered without the structure of a team for the past several years. He hasn't played in a game since December of 2014, and succumbed to the pressure last season during the conditional reinstatement.

"Josh tried to beat the system,'' said Montgomery. "He tried to numb his brain from his past, from being disappointed. 'So if you're not going to let me smoke, I'll start drinking.' When Josh first came to me, he was dipping and he was smoking Black and Milds. He needed to do something because they had taken everything else away from him.''

Montgomery said he worked so hard with Gordon that "when he didn't get reinstated in May, I was devastated. But I told him when he came to me, 'I took you on for life. I ain't taking you on as a project.' It wasn't until he didn't make it and I was still there that he understood it.''



He said he believes Gordon was denied reinstatement in May because he missed his mandatory drug tests, which are violations of the policy.

"It's my understanding that Josh was clean, but that he wasn't answering his phone,'' said Montgomery. "Josh would go somewhere and he wouldn't tell anyone he was going out of town and he wouldn't pick his phone up. He didn't want to tell his people 'I can't come out there because I've got to stay here and answer the phone for drugs tests.'''

Montgomery said Gordon 'almost got to the end. It was March when he started messing up.'

He said he believes Gordon might have been afraid of his superstar ability.

"He sabotages his success,'' said Montgomery. "He gets in his own way. But I think it will be different this time.''

Montgomery said he saw Gordon two weeks ago when they let him out of rehab on a day pass.

"He's about 231 right now, and he's been working out there, so it won't take him long,'' said Montgomery. "He came in here (two weeks ago) he was out of shape and hadn't caught a football in two months, but that football didn't hit the ground.''

He said Gordon filmed an interview that day for Uninterrupted, Lebron James' website for athletes' videos and podcasts.

"He told them a lot of stuff that I didn't even know,'' said Montgomery. "He opened up really, really big. I think the mask is off. What I saw that day was very deep.''

He said Gordon has been shaped by a lot of things in his past and he "falls into a dark place. He hasn't had a strong backbone other than football.''

Montgomery said if Gordon played for him, "I would've said to him 'what do you need from me to help you succeed?' The only person who can help Josh Gordon -- is everyone. Not just Josh Gordon. Because if he could, he would. He cannot do it on his own.''

After working with Gordon for several months, Montgomery believes "Josh could've been an Olympic champion in the 400 meters. He could've play basketball or baseball. Whatever you put in front of him, Josh can do -- any sport.''

He said the Browns were understandably upset when Gordon blew his opportunity last fall, and seemingly slammed the door shut on a comeback.

"Josh was bitter at first but now he understands that if he wants to play football, he better play football wherever they let him play football or he's going to be playing flag football with me,'' said Montgomery. "In fact, he wanted to go down to the game in Tampa when they were there, but he couldn't get out of the (rehab facility) to go. If the Browns want him, he'll go back there and he'll play hard.''



Montgomery said Gordon has surrounded himself with people who support his sobriety, but knows it will be difficult once he's reinstated.

"That's the hard part, because he's got to go around his same demons,'' said Montgomery. "He'll be around the high rollers and the people who want to be with Josh Gordon, and that could be a problem. He loves the game of football, but he's so easily distracted just because he has no one to let down.''

Montgomery said he hopes a team will be willing to develop Gordon the person as much as the player.

"He wants to be wanted, but he also needs a team that says 'if we keep you happy mentally, we know you'll help this team,' he said. "They really need to care about his mental.''

He said he believes Gordon is ready to make a go of it this time.

"I'm just praying daily that he can wake up and walk out of there,'' said Montgomery.

http://www.cleveland.com/browns/index.ssf/2017/09/tim_montgomery_says_josh_gordo.html

I'm trying to read between the lines of some of those statements, and I don't like what I see.

Josh is such a victim.

There are so many statements from this guy in that article that share one of a couple themes.

Josh is a victim.
It's not Josh's fault.
Josh can't follow rules because he's afraid of his ability (wtf!?).


The only person that can help JG is everyone!? You're kidding me, right?

Dude got a kid tho

This Josh Gordon talk is just a pipe dream. Pardon the pun...

As much as i'd like to see prime time Josh Gordon back in this team, there are so many things wrong with that latest posted article. Wow.

That was a little blunt.

And somewhat disjointed.

Every time someone makes a post in this thread and it gets bumped, all I see in bold is "Josh Gordon denied reinstatement". I always open it expecting to read he's not getting back in.

This is serious!

His problem is chronic!

His career might go up in smoke!

Don't be a dope!

Why not let the guy on the turf if he thrives so well on natural grass?

Same thing just happened to me...

I hope the Browns take him back.. Coleman and Gordon. the Browns need a WR... He's still a Brown... Would love for him to sit Britts ass on the bench, because Britt is just useless..

Theses damn free agents getting all this $$$ to quit..is worse then a guy who smokes weed and wants to play.

Not going to judge Britt or Gordon... But would love to see 3 WR's who can put all they have to help the team win.

Coleman..Britt and Gordon... that would be a nice package.

He has to get out of rehab (again) and then we shall see.

Something I'll never understand. I didn't think Weed was addicting so how come he can't just put it down?

Marijuana is not physically addicting but it can be psychologically addicting. I have been clean & sober for over two decades now but smoked pot constantly, back in the day.

Take it from me, it definitely can be addicting (but not with everyone).

There's certainly will power involved. Will power to stop doing anything that you like to do.


I can say this, I smoked cigarettes from the age of 14 till 23 regularly. When I see a cigarette, there is no temptation or anything.

I smoked marijuana regularly from like 14 until 25. Seven years later (while having short spurts of smoking during that time, more recently only smoking about one or two weeks a year, and at this point: not having smoked at all in about two years), not a day goes by where I don't miss marijuana. Not a single day. It's not physical, it's mental. Like an overeater or something.



Of course, I look at it as I have no choice. There's no way I can come home, and tell my wife I lost my job because I failed a drug test. As a man, I'd be so embarassed. I take pride in working. The rules are the rules. You want to work for my company, you face random drug testing regularly. I agreed to this, so if I fail, it's my fault and only mine.

That's why I don't take it easy on Josh. He wants to play in the NFL, great. But your employer has a set of expectations that you have to agree to if you want to be employed by them. If you fail to meet those expectations, you're gone. You know what they are and you have decided they're reasonable enough that you'll take the job.

I remain hopeful that Gordon is clean, has been helped, and has whipped this. That is all beyond football considerations.

It also sounds like Tim Montgomery and MKC split a pitcher of kool-aid. I would like to see the "best" JG again playing prime football.

Just can't bring myself to expect that with eyes wide open.

Gordon smokes weed, which is legal in a handful of States and isn't a performance enhancement drug and he has been suspended off and on for 3-4 years. Kap exercises his 1st amendment right and peacefully chooses to speak out and not stand for the National Anthem and he is out of work. Meanwhile, Ezekiel Elliott has assault accusations and a restraining order on him and he continues to play the game. Something isn't right here.

People assume that Josh only smokes weed. I don't think that is true.

Kap isn't in the league because of the combination of him being a terrible qb and why have a distraction on your team if he isn't even a good player?

Zeke has not been charged of any crime by the police who investigated the case. It's clear to anyone who read all the articles I posted on Stupidity of Elliot thread that the NFL railroaded him and that the witness was not credible. I think the media and public should be making a bigger deal of just how evil the NFL was in their handling of that particular case.

Amazing the excuses you are making for all three.

Who knows if weed was his only drug, you certainly don't know if it was or wasn't. So, you are making an assumption. Personally, I am glad the guy has taken to getting his life sorted out. That is far more important than sport. But, the inconsistencies the NFL has shown with his case and others is terrible.

Regarding Kap...you are saying he isn't playing because he is more terrible than some of the current starting QBs? No way, dude. Kap is being shunned.

All of the above, and the excuses you make proves just how whacked our priorities are as a society.

...and me

LOL..........okay.

What makes you think he did other drugs.. To my knowledge, nothing about any other drug was discussed.... But I try not to pay much attention to Gordon so I may have missed something.

I think it is a combination - he isn't that good and brings distractions. If he was above average he'd have a job - he stinks (but not as bad as some of the other QB's starting), however the distraction aspect keeps him out of a job.

Do you watch inside the nfl?

I ask this because Ray Lewis stated the other week, that he was sitting in a meeting with Ravens owners and they were ready to make an offer to Kap. The owners wanted to hear form Kap directly, and he would not call them. Then his GF post digusting meme of lewis comparing him to django unchained. Kap may not be getting a look at him from teams, but a lot of that is on him NOT JUST FROM THE PROTEST. Its because he believes HE is bigger than the game, not his cause, HE.

Ray Lewis explanation of Kap

I thought one of his suspensions was because he was drinking on a flight to Vega with Manzeil, while still on the drug protocol.

Management of pain. If anybody goes back, (how many years?) and watches Gordon play you will see someone who goes full speed, hits people, and gets hit.

Marijuana is a very effective pain reliever and has anti-inflammatory properties. It aids in movement. For a football player it is very tempting.

People who don't wake up sore, stiff, barely able to move don't understand.

The NFL destroyed his reputation, his character, his career, for smoking small amounts of weed. That's a fact. The Brown's are complicit in not defending him and standing behind him.

Let Baby Hillary and the totalitarian left have at it. Tell us once again how the boy is a criminal and a punk.

Agreed. I think there's more to it than marijuana. I have wondered for awhile if he has an opiate addiction. That kind of time in rehab makes me think (even more-so) that this is a possibility.


To Daman


I believe Josh has once failed a test for having Codine in his system. That's a downer. I remember at the time it seemed as if he was hanging with a hip-hop crowd, and I was reading about a drink in the hip-hop community that was called like syzrp or something like that. Mixing coding with like kool-aid or fruit punch.



Also, Josh was at the infamous Manziel house party weekend where cocaine was found, and Johnny was sued by the owner of the house



Josh has also been suspended for DUI. But I think the level was nothing outrageous, like .1 or something like that. But he had a DUI in North Carolina.

They always talk about pot, but he's been hit with those other things, and we have no idea what he's actually failing tests for

Looks like once again, everyone else is to blame for his decisions. Weed is not the issue, the issue is he knows the rules of the NFL and deliberately defies them. He is an idiot who has cost himself millions upon millions of dollars, and has cost this team a playmaker and wins.

Which was quite embarrassing. Because it wasn't just Manziel on the plane. It was Haden and others

I am not into politics but this Stinks to me.

I don't care if states make pot legal. At ANY time the feds can come in and arrest every single one of them because they are violating federal law which ALWAYS trumps state law.

Gordon is too stupid to be a professional athlete. Every single one of us goes to work and we know there are rules at work we have to follow that have nothing to do with the law. We follow those rules because we want to keep our jobs whether we agree with said rules or not.

Josh decided smoking pot was more important than making 100 million dollars as a top NFL WR. That's on him and ONLY on him. He made his choice and I hope he never plays another down for the NFL ever again. Hopefully others can learn from his mistakes because I doubt he ever will.

If he gets reinstated I hope he remains a Brown and suits up asap.

I'd be a moron to be disappointed if he plays elsewhere (hey, trade!) or be surprised if he screws up and is out again by the 2nd quarter of his first game back.

j/c

the people who say to trade/cut him don't make much sense to me. he costs us nothing to be on the roster, and what could we trade him for? maybe a 5th rounder? to me, it's FAR more worth it to keep his rights for the next two years

We would get nothing for him. No 5th rounder. Nothing.


I agree though. We've got his rights to a full season, then can put a RFA tag on him. He's ours. And he'll always be more valuable than any single 5th receiver IMO.


No reason to cut him. We just wait, and see how things work out. If Josh can come back, great. Better pass a physical of course. Then he can join the team and be in on select plays unless/until he gives us any confidence.

You simply can't rely on the guy, but when reinstated, he's immediately more valuable than a Reggie (whatever his name is) whom you could replace with Rannell Hall or Jordan Leslie

Gordon: https://www.dawgtalkers.net/ubbthreads.ph...ent#Post1272140

Add to that list a diluted test (i.e. a failed test), multiple skipped tests (also failed tests) and who knows what else. He's been suspended not only for weed but codeine found in purple drank cough medicine, and also for boozing when he had previously been forbidden from drinking alcohol due to his DUI.

Kaepernick: Doesn't this boil down to what the left always says? You have freedom of speech/expression but if teams or companies choose not to employ you, that is their decision. Every once in a while that gets turned around on them and you realize hey, taking away somebody's livelihood is kind of a big deal.

Don't forget about Colin Kaepernicks police "pig" socks and other inflammatory measures he took. And what about all the dozens of players in the NFL who have done a similar kneeling protest who are still employed?

There's more to it than just the fact that Kaepernick kneeled for the Anthem although given he was the initiator in all that, it's fair to say that is part of why he's unemployed. He's also just not as good as he once was, NFL teams will no longer be beaten by the read-option scheme, and it seemed like he lost a lot of muscle mass (and motivation for football?) at some point.

Elliott: Hard to say as I haven't really followed the case all that closely. In one of these threads I actually made a roundabout defense of Colin Kaepernick wondering why people got so offended by the Anthem protest but will still root for people who do much worse things, so I understand where you're coming from. I also see how the league is highly inconsistent and at times unfair in how they do these investigations (think: Deflategate). I'm short on the details in the Elliott case though.

He's getting out.

He checked to to prove he is clean. It wasn't because of some relapse.

The Browns are complicit in not defending him and standing behind him? What?! We've been doing this same song and dance for like four years now.

The team has stood behind him over and over again, giving him chance after chance. If the team is responsible for anything, it is allowing entitlement mentality to grow as Gordon has been a dominant wide receiver and has has an unusual blend of size, speed, strength, and athletic ability that it appears he is untouchable. Most players would have been gone long ago.

Maybe the best thing to do for Josh would have been to cut him loose, oh about two years ago, wish him the best and say get your life together and good luck to you. But really, this isn't the Browns fault. Damned if they do, damned if they don't sort of thing.

One thing I want to point out... as the article very subtly slips it in there... that Gordon just recently skipped a test (counts as a fail) as late as this April?

That's not addiction... that's not a failure of the system, his support network, or anything. After, supposedly, walking the straight and narrow for however long... to skip a test months before you're up for reinstatement is pure unbridled stupidity.