Josh Gordon reportedly will soon be reinstated by the league, and the Seahawks say they’re interested. GM John Schneider indicated on Sunday that Seattle will look into signing Gordon as soon as he’s available.
Expectations, I think, should be modest. Gordon had one of the greatest receiving seasons in the history of the league, catching 87 passes for 1,646 yards and 9 TDs back in 2013 for a bad Cleveland team – remarkable production, considering he missed two games and was working with lesser quarterbacks. But that was eight years ago. Gordon is 30 now, and hasn’t really played much football since that time (he’s played in only 33 games in the last seven-plus seasons, with constant suspensions for running afoul of the league’s policies against substance abuse).
Seattle had him for five games at the end of the 2019 season, and he was more of accent piece than a notable part of that offense, catching 7 passes for 139 yards, with no touchdowns.
In DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, the Seahawks have one of the best receiving tandems in the league. Gordon won’t take any reps away from them. And they also have a second-rounder (Dee Eskridge) who’s shown some potential to be an explosive third receiver. They’ve had some success using Eskridge on end-arounds. I wouldn’t think Gordon would be more productive than Eskridge.
Assuming Seattle signs him, I would view Gordon as more of a wild card. They’d rotate him in some, and perhaps he make a couple of downfield catches. But only if one of those three other receivers came down with some kind of injury would we get to the point where we might be thinking about putting Gordon on a fantasy roster.
The last 16 times Gordon has been on the field for over half of his team’s offensive plays, he’s caught 58 passes for 969 yards, but with just 4 TDs. He had Tom Brady as his quarterback for most of those games.
I will pass on Gordon.
| JOSH GORDON SINCE 2018 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Tm | Opp | Result | Tgt | Rec | Yds | Avg | TD | Snap% |
| 2018 | Browns | PIT | T 21-21 | 3 | 1 | 17 | 17.0 | 1 | 78% |
| 2018 | Patriots | MIA | W 38-7 | 2 | 2 | 32 | 16.0 | 0 | 22% |
| 2018 | Patriots | IND | W 38-24 | 4 | 2 | 50 | 25.0 | 1 | 26% |
| 2018 | Patriots | KAN | W 43-40 | 9 | 5 | 42 | 8.4 | 0 | 81% |
| 2018 | Patriots | at CHI | W 38-31 | 7 | 4 | 100 | 25.0 | 0 | 95% |
| 2018 | Patriots | at BUF | W 25-6 | 6 | 4 | 42 | 10.5 | 0 | 84% |
| 2018 | Patriots | GNB | W 31-17 | 9 | 5 | 130 | 26.0 | 1 | 80% |
| 2018 | Patriots | at TEN | L 10-34 | 12 | 4 | 81 | 20.3 | 0 | 83% |
| 2018 | Patriots | at NYJ | W 27-13 | 5 | 5 | 70 | 14.0 | 0 | 76% |
| 2018 | Patriots | MIN | W 24-10 | 3 | 3 | 58 | 19.3 | 1 | 65% |
| 2018 | Patriots | at MIA | L 33-34 | 9 | 5 | 96 | 19.2 | 0 | 86% |
| 2018 | Patriots | at PIT | L 10-17 | 2 | 1 | 19 | 19.0 | 0 | 92% |
| 2019 | Patriots | PIT | W 33-3 | 4 | 3 | 73 | 24.3 | 1 | 70% |
| 2019 | Patriots | at MIA | W 43-0 | 5 | 2 | 19 | 9.5 | 0 | 80% |
| 2019 | Patriots | NYJ | W 30-14 | 11 | 6 | 83 | 13.8 | 0 | 88% |
| 2019 | Patriots | at BUF | W 16-10 | 7 | 3 | 46 | 15.3 | 0 | 89% |
| 2019 | Patriots | at WAS | W 33-7 | 8 | 5 | 59 | 11.8 | 0 | 86% |
| 2019 | Patriots | NYG | W 35-14 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 7.0 | 0 | 31% |
| 2019 | Seahawks | at SFO | W 27-24 | 2 | 2 | 27 | 13.5 | 0 | 37% |
| 2019 | Seahawks | at PHI | W 17-9 | 2 | 1 | 10 | 10.0 | 0 | 33% |
| 2019 | Seahawks | MIN | W 37-30 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 10.0 | 0 | 36% |
| 2019 | Seahawks | at LAR | L 12-28 | 5 | 2 | 34 | 17.0 | 0 | 56% |
| 2019 | Seahawks | at CAR | W 30-24 | 1 | 1 | 58 | 58.0 | 0 | 37% |
Statistics compiled using search tools at Pro-Football-Reference.com
—Ian Allan