JOSH Gordon’s football career has been a tumultuous journey.
An undoubtedly gifted player, Gordon’s issues off the field with addiction date all the way back to middle school.
Gordon, nicknamed Flash, most recently played for the Titans
He won a Super Bowl ring with the Patriots
He told GQ in 2017 that he began using Xanax, codeine, and marijuana while in the seventh grade to help cope with anxiety, social awkwardness, and feelings of inadequacy.
Kicked out of two middle schools and one high school, Gordon eventually landed at Lamar High School in Houston.
It was during this time he joined a gang and became involved in shootouts, selling drugs, carjackings, home robberies, and using counterfeit money – per a 2017 interview with SI.
Then, just after his seventeenth birthday, Gordon was arrested for felony credit card theft.
Reflecting on his 35 days behind bars, he told SI: “You get shot, you go to jail.
“These are progressions in this lifestyle.”
COLLEGE BOUND
A three-star recruit out of high school, Gordon stayed in-state and headed for Baylor on a scholarship.
However, his drug dealing didn’t cease, and in 2010 “he was arrested for possession,” before being “indefinitely suspended for failing a school drug test,” a year later.
Having played just two seasons in Waco, Gordon transferred to Utah where he ultimately failed to make an appearance before declaring for the 2012 NFL Supplemental Draft.
CLEVELAND CALLS
Taken with the first pick of the second round by the Cleveland Browns, Gordon was an instant hit.
In sixteen games as a rookie, he racked up 805 receiving yards, before leading the league in receiving yards with 1,646 yards the following season – even though he had been suspended for two games for a violation of the league’s substance abuse policy.
This earned him his first, and only, Pro Bowl honors and First-Team All-Pro nod.
However, he made just five appearances in 2014 after a DWI arrest led to a suspension by the NFL and the Browns.
Suspended by the league once more for the whole 2015 season, Gordon was also suspended for the first four games of the 2016 season.
But while technically able to return for the remainder of the year, he chose instead to enter rehab.
Gordon wrote at the time: “After careful thought and deep consideration I’ve decided that I need to step away from pursuing my return to the Browns and my football career to enter an in-patient rehabilitation facility.”
He eventually returned the following season, playing the final five games, but his days in Cleveland were numbered.
After one appearance in 2018, he and a fifth-round pick were traded to the New England Patriots for a seventh-round pick.
SUPER BOWL WIN
Eleven appearances followed before he was suspended once again by the NFL.
The Patriots went on to win Super Bowl LIII, with Gordon credited as a member of that team.
His 2019 campaign was derailed by a mid-season injury which ultimately led to his being waived by the Patriots.
SINGLE YEAR STINTS
Swiftly claimed by the Seattle Seahawks, he went on to make five appearances that year before being suspended for the final two games of the season.
Bouncing back and forth between suspensions and activations, Gordon missed the 2020 season and was eventually released by Seattle.
Gordon briefly ventured into the Fan Controlled Football League, before being given another chance at the NFL dream with the Kansas City Chiefs.
He made twelve appearances in 2021 before signing for the Tennessee Titans the following season where he made just two appearances this past season before being released.
XFL
Now 31 years old, Gordon faces a fresh start in the XFL.
The third incarnation of the league, this time it comes under new ownership in the forms of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Dany Garcia, and RedBird Capital Partners.
Drafted in the sixth round of the supplemental draft, Gordon has returned to Seattle, this time for the Sea Dragons.
Johnson and Garcia are now running the new-look XFL
