Browns are bracing themselves for at least eight games without Josh Gordon
http://www.cleveland.com/browns/index.ssf/2014/08/browns_are_bracing_themselves.html#incart_2boxBrowns are bracing themselves for at least eight games without Josh Gordon
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Browns are bracing themselves for at least an eight-game suspension for receiver Josh Gordon, league sources told cleveland.com.
Gordon's appeal hearing wrapped up Monday afternoon in New York City, and the decision on his indefinite ban could take anywhere from one to three weeks, a source said. If he wins, he'll resume his career without interruption, and if he loses, he'll be banished from the team and the league for at least a year.
But the two sides can also hammer out a settlement, and that's what the Browns are hoping for. Realistically, the best-case scenario would probably be about eight games, a source said.
But the Browns certainly aren't counting on it. They know that no NFL player has ever won an appeal based on second-hand smoke and that Gordon will be hard-pressed to end up with anything less than the indefinite ban.
But Gordon's legal team drove home the point that Gordon has tested negative 70 times since his rookie year in 2012 and that he barely tested positive for marijuana this time around.
In the event Gordon's ban is reduced to eight games, he'd be eligible to return Nov. 6 at Cincinnati, a Thursday night game on NFL Network. The final eight contests include three AFC North contests, two against the Bengals and one against the Ravens in the finale.
Of course, Gordon would have to stay clean during his time away, and efforts are underway to make sure that he has the right support system around him during the ban.
In the meantime, Gordon is practicing with the team, making big plays in practice -- including several big catches during a challenge period at the end of Tuesday's session -- and gearing up for Saturday's preseason opener in Detroit.
"As frustrating as it is for Josh, I think he's handled it well,'' said coach Mike Pettine. "He's been practicing hard, giving good effort, finishing plays. Assuming if we don't hear anything, then he'll be out there Saturday."
Receivers coach Mike McDaniel said working around the Gordon uncertainty hasn't been difficult.
"I try to stick to my job,'' he said. "My job is to develop players, so it really hasn't been an issue for me, and I just go and work on his craft with him. He's been very diligent when he's been here, and for the person, and for the whole team, we hope for the best and just wait for the process to get through itself and take care of itself.''
He said there's so many reps in training camp, that Gordon's aren't detracting from anyone else's.
"He fits very fluidly in that process because guys do need rest anyway,'' he said. "He needs to keep developing his game because at some point in time, he's going to put a Browns jersey on, and he's going to have to be productive. He's a very young player. It doesn't really hinder anybody else. He gets the most out of his reps during practice.''
Despite the looming suspension and missing practice to attend the appeal hearing, Gordon has been on point, McDaniel said.
"To his credit, he's been very, very good about coming into work and making it about football,'' he said. "In his mind, he wants to be as good as there is, so when you're showing plays of other people at his position doing things that he hasn't put in his game yet, he's interested and very competitive to work on that. I've had no qualms about how he's worked with me.''
A former Yale receiver himself himself, McDaniel has coached the likes of Texans receiver Andre Johnson, who led the NFL in receiving yards (1,575) yards and receptions (115) when McDaniel was with him in 2008.
"(Gordon's) as good as I've ever seen personally,'' McDaniel said. "I've been fortunate to be around some really great receivers, Rod Smith, Andre Johnson, Pierre Garcon. In terms of naturally talented and catching the ball, he's as good any one of them, and if you're in those categories, you're an excellent football player.''
Despite the fact Gordon led the NFL with 1,646 yards last year in 14 games, McDaniel feels his upside is tremendous.
"He's a very unique talent in that his ceiling, there's not much higher than that,'' said McDaniel. "At the end of the day, he led the league in receiving. If you extrapolated it to 16 games, it would've been the second-highest total in the history of the game, and he has a lot of room to grow as a route runner.''
"He is a very natural receiver, (the way he) catches it. He's just learning the nuances of NFL offenses because the best receivers are the ones that can get open in the timing of the play, so you have to kind of get a clock in your head of when to get open and how to do it against different techniques. That's our primary focus every day, but he's gotten a lot better going against these great corners.''
McDaniel has been showing Gordon game tape of players such as Johnson, and has found him a willing pupil. He, too, heard the reports of Gordon sometimes loafing in practice, but hasn't witnessed it during their time together.
"You show them the picture of 'okay, this is the way that the great ones practice,''' he said. "He as best he can has attempted to do that and that's always a work in progress when you're dealing with a person that everything's been easy his whole life athletically. So he right now is working harder than he's ever worked in his career and he hasn't reached his ceiling of work ethic. He'll continue to grow as he gets older and progresses as a football player.''
If Gordon does have to go, McDaniel hopes he can come back better than before.
"In anything in life, things happen and you can be regretful, you can have a bunch of emotions,'' he said. "At the end of the day, it's how he responds. And you can use something like this to define you as a person and your character. Wherever the process leads, I hope that he uses all of this to improve himself as a man, just like you'd like you've want anybody to respond to any sort of tribulation.''
We might not know until the season is ready to start...Until then he practices with the team.
