Josh Gordon, ahem, "writes" open letter to critics

The troubled Browns' receiver has "written" a detailed essay and released it to the general public, although it is aimed squarely at the many prominent critics who have grown either tired of watching him waste his God-given talent, or genuinely concerned about the dangerous path on which he seems to be traveling.

To be honest, I'm not sure which aspect of this letter offends me more: the uncanny way in which Gordon toggles back and forth between claiming ownership for his own mistakes, and blaming others for his problems...or the ridiculous notion that the 23-year-old wide receiver "wrote" a single word of this well-crafted piece of publicist-driven propaganda. 

 "What I do know is the following: I am not a drug addict; I am not an alcoholic; I am not someone who deserves to be dissected and analyzed like some tragic example of everything that can possibly go wrong for a professional athlete. And … I am not going to die on account of the troubled state you wrongly believe my life to be in. I am a human being, with feelings and emotions and scars and flaws, just like anyone else. I make mistakes — I have made a lot of mistakes — but I am a good person, and I will persevere."

You can read the entire letter, clearly hand-crafted by not just a single publicist, but most likely an entire team of lawyers collaborating with the creative writing professors at one or more local universities, and judge for yourself.


For me, this is four printed pagers, minus pictures and videos, of denial. This guy has been doing drugs, by his own admission, since his early teens, and he is now facing a full year's banishment from the league for multiple drug policy violations in the NFL. Yet he doesn't have a problem. 

And he's taking the blame for all of his actions. Except the ones that are someone else's fault. 

Like that big silly who was smoking weed too close to him last summer, causing him to fail a drug test due to a contact-high. 

My advice to the Browns today is the same as it was last year: Cut this guy loose. You'll be doing everyone a favor. For the team, you can move on with the business of finding a play-making WR that you can rely upon--possibly in the draft, but also through free agency. 

And for Gordon, you can stop playing the role of "enabler" by always giving this multi-time drug offender a soft landing spot, which gives him no incentive whatsoever to clean up his act.