Cleveland Browns: Stocks Rising
October 1, 20142014 Cleveland Indians Power Rankings
October 1, 2014The great Liz Merrill has a piece in the soon-to-be released “Cleveland Issue” of ESPN The Magazine which chronicles Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon, his struggles with marijuana, and the tests he is forced to endure under the NFL’s substance abuse program.
Josh Gordon has two hours to pee in a cup. To prepare, he is drinking a bottle of water — natural spring, not carbonated, because he hates that — and has left ample time to get back to his home base, a bathroom in his downtown condo near Lake Erie. The call came earlier this afternoon, and Gordon knows the drill. No matter where he is or what he’s doing, he has four hours to drop everything and take a drug test.
One time, the Browns wide receiver was jet-skiing in Florida when his cellphone rang. “We gotta leave,” Gordon told friends, who had just docked on an island. “I got a test.” When he’s in Cleveland, his tester and witness is often a guy named Mike, a gentleman in his 50s or 60s whom Gordon jokes he has gotten to know very well.
Sipping his water just off the lobby of Aloft, a trendy downtown hotel, Gordon says he’s taken roughly 180 drug tests since he entered the NFL in 2012, one of the pitfalls of having a college rĂ©sumĂ© that includes breathtaking catches and positive tests for marijuana. Has it hit him that on this early-September day, the bathroom break is Gordon’s only link to the NFL?
I thought long and hard (for roughly three seconds) about including this in Monday’s edition of #ActualSportswriting, but felt that it was too good and too pertinent to not share it today. Gordon reiterates that he does not feel that he has a “drug problem” despite many opinions to the contrary. He is still upset, years later, that the league put him in the preliminary stages of the drug program immediately out of college despite the well-documented offenses happening off NFL soil. He admits that, as a means to deal with his struggles, he writes poetry. He also admits that everyone in his circle, including his brother and roommate, still smokes.
31 Comments
Sounds like Gordon has a selfish circle. He’s their meal ticket and they can’t even quit smoking weed to help him out.
i was thinking the same thing..
I’ll be his best friend and much cheaper too!
Good article. It made me wonder what Cris Carter sees from his perspective that I cannot see from mine. The 100s of successful, negative drug tests (and the very low result on the one that has him suspended currently) suggest Gordon is largely doing the right thing. The DWI was stupid, but he’s 23 years old and certainly not the first 23 year old to do a stupid thing. I want to be a Gordon fan – he seems very likable and his talent is obviously extraordinary. The counterbalance to that is that I don’t want to believe what Carter says about him being an addict in denial. Can we believe in Josh Gordon, or is it only a matter of time until he disappoints us again?
Great, honest article, the type that always makes me wonder why a local writer can’t do such a piece. But it leaves the impression that Gordon is even less mature and more of a risk to violate policy again than even cynical me imagined. If he’s only living with and hanging around people who do it, not sure how he tests clean indefinitely, or even short term.
It’s hard when the humanity of people that you talk about all the time so callously is revealed so clearly.
It was a good article and informative. It did verify what I had heard about the test he was punished for; “He’d been banned indefinitely after a urine sample this past March measured 16 nanograms per milliliter of THC, just over the NFL’s threshold of 15. Though his B sample tested under the limit, at 13.6, it didn’t matter. Gordon was in Stage 3 of the NFL’s drug program, and nothing could save him.”
Although I understand the fact he was in stage 3 I have to question the lack of common sense used to find him guilty. If two samples from the same test yield different results, shouldn’t that require another test to verify the results? I would think that should be a requirement before they take anyone’s livelihood away, especially considering how close the numbers were in this case. Sample A was only 1 nanogram over the limit while Sample B was 1.4 nanograms under. So why did Sample A carry more weight than Sample B? I realize I probably don’t understand all the rules used in this process but it makes me wonder if the rules they are using aren’t flawed.
Best explanation I heard: the B sample is for confirmation only. B is measured only if A is initially above the threshold. Any positive result on B is taken as confirmation of the A finding. The B result is basically “pass/fail.” We can discuss what’s fair or unfair all day long, but the process – then and now – is part of the collectively-bargained-for terms of employment. There’s no room for discretion in the policy, which is what doomed Gordon’s appeal.
here’s what I don’t understand though. upon the new drug policy they upped the limit. so, either Gordon’s test falls under the new policy (no fail, no suspension) or the old policy (year suspension, then reinstate).
but, he got a 10game suspension? how in the random did that happen? also, from a Brown’s fan perspective, 6 games is the least amount of games that a player can play and be counted as a full season (thank you Keenan McCardell). so, we also still lose a year on his rookie contract.
ugh.
agreed. it also indicates that he has some growing up to do in order to be a leader of that pack and institute some rules if he shall continue to be that meal ticket.
This thread is too serious.
Did anyone else notice that it was mentioned Gordon was wearing a Mariner’s cap in early September when the Indians were battling Seattle for that last playoff spot AND Kluber was battling Felix for the Cy Young?
Agreed. That part remains unexplained. There was discussion of the new rule not applying because of the offense occurring in the previous “league year,” but obviously the league didn’t hold firmly to that position or the indefinite suspension would have remained. It’s as if they magically found a way to exercise discretion where no room to do so seemingly existed, but didn’t want to push it too far. đ
or how about that his older, pot-smoking brother goes by the handle “Kain” and may have killed Josh’s chances of being “able” to play football this year.
or how about the Aloft being described as “a trendy downtown hotel” instead of “self-consciously hip but ultimately sad and distressed in a very Cleveland way and horribly mis-located in the midst of a noisy industrial rail yard.” (Sorry, didn’t mean to go all Yelp on you all).
Point taken…However as you pointed out B is measured if A is initially above the threshold. In this case A was so they should have checked B, but then B did not confirm the A finding. Therefore, in my mind they should have taken another test.
Prior to my retiring I was in a position that required random drug testing, and it was SOP that if one tested positive on a drug test then another test was taken to verify the results. If taking a second test to confirm the results of the first test was not part of the collective bargaining agreement, then someone really dropped the ball!
Washington State. Nuff said.
Selfish hangers-on around successful NFL players? No way!
You cannot see what Mr. Carter sees because your horse is simply too close to the ground.
I completely agree that I wish a local writer would have produced a similar piece but it seems I have read on several occasions that Gordon is not granting this kind of access to the local beat. There may be good reason but nevertheless, no access.
Everyone I know smokes weed.
I know, right??
That’s funny. That being said, Carter was once a guy who was on his way out of the league for drug problems. He does kind of have an “insider” perspective on this. He had to climb quite a bit further to get on that horse than someone like me who has lived a life having never tried any illegal drug and has never been an addict of any drug (outside of caffeine.)
I won’t pretend to know (or attempt to understand) the problem…but I also won’t point the finger at anyone else and judge.
The problem for me with Carter and others like him is that you canât accurately assess a situation like this from a distance. Hell, itâs difficult to assess a personâs âproblemsâ up close since every one of us brings an entire lifetime of experiences to any situation that affects how we perceive and respond. Categorically condemning a person, as Carter has done with Gordon, based on only observations from afar is one of the things I loathe most about our media frenzied, split-second analysis/conclusion, instant gratification paradigm weâre in.
Josh Gordon (to this point) has begun painting himself into this corner that he’s in. Unless he makes changes to his lifestyle (and in particular to those he keeps around him) he has essentially (statistically speaking) condemned himself. This isn’t me judging him…but observing what’s happened and knowing how the NFL (and the media) is going to judge him.
Agreed. What remains so frustrating about this whole situation (sorry, not trying to reignite a never ending debate) is that all of this is over WEED. He didn’t kill someone with his car, he didn’t hit a woman, he didn’t hit small children, he wasn’t involved in a murder cover up, he isn’t trying to take weapons on a plane, hell, he isn’t even involved with “hard” drugs. This entire kerfuffle is over a substance which is arguably less problematic than alcohol yet his entire ordeal under the NFL structure would make it appear that his actions are somehow putting lives at immediate and imminent risk if he even thinks about weed.
The next part of this equation…is that if anything…weed is the anti-performance enhancing drug. Just imagine how much better he migth be if he’d put it down? đ
Yeah, I didn’t want to get into that part of the conversation…as I try to keep those types of topics off of sports pages. That being said, I would guess that we see eye to eye on this.
after reading that it’s really just amazing that the NFL had the balls to suspend him.
well, think about the effects of marijuana on pain – it’s similar to amphetamines but usually at a lower level. I mean, the NFL overstocks their locker rooms with pain pills but draws the line on marijuana. crazy.
Plus, it’s not necessarily anti-PED. When vaporized or used any other way than smoking, it’s not nearly as harmful physically.
Totally NSFW, BTW:
http://youtu.be/vjd74gzMAKU
“This is great! This is the bees knees.”
“think about the effects of marijuana on pain – it’s similar to amphetamines…” Que?