Josh Gordon-Ultimate knucklehead

The Game Room
61

I think it’s pretty clear he had secondhand smoke. The NFL tested him every 2-4 days. So the 13.5ng/ml reading wasn’t picking him when he smoked last week or a few weeks ago. Full on smoking the crazy high THC pot we have these days spikes you up past 100ng/dl for days. The whole reason every other organization sets their limit at at least 50ng/dl including stuff like testing airline pilots is because secondhand smoke can trigger false positives at 15ng/dl.

And yes, it’s his fault, he surrounded himself with shit that he should’ve stayed clear of. But that doesn’t mean the NFL is blameless. The NFL has decided that pot is the biggest fucking issue its on the lookout for. During negotiations to get that fucking ridiculous 15ng/dl testing level that no one else uses, they relaxed testing on HGH with the union to get an agreement. They’re letting performance enhancing football relevant cheating slide so that they could get an agreement to be the fucking pot nazis.

To put this all on Gordon is to ignore the fact that the NFL has deliberately made their testing policy significantly more strict than that used for airline pilots and pretty much everyone else who gets drug tested, ignores that even by their own ridiculously strict standards, they used the test they know to be less accurate and ignored the test they know to be more accurate, and to know that you can fucking get drunk and kill someone or beat your wife unconcious and get only a fraction of the punishment he’s getting.

“It’s all on Josh Gordon” is a simplistic view here. Yes, he’s a dumbass for running afoul of their strict and stupid standards, I agree. But that doesn’t mean the NFL isn’t deliberately obtuse, misguided dickbags handing out unjust punishments with misguided policies.

62

Again, I don’t think the science has shown that to be true. Possible … perhaps. But it’s also possible he smoked it a few days/hours before the test. I suppose you could conclude that the arbitrator was either an idiot or in the pocket of the NFL, or he hates pot, but I don’t have a problem with his conclusion.

Blame the NFLPA too. And the marijuana laws. And the friends Gordon hangs out with. There are lots of people to blame. But the biggest, by far, is Josh Gordon.

63

The arbitrator was not an independent arbitrator, he was a VP of the NFL. He was an NFL employee who works directly under Goodell. So yes, very likely in the pocket of the NFL. It sort of amazes me that their contract specifies one of Goodell’s henchman as the arbitrator in a case like this.

64

This may be the fatalistic Browns fan in me, but I think Gordon’s career is probably over because of this. He’s going to be removed from the only thing that motivated him to keep clean. A total separation from his team and the game of football, and any support system they might give to him. You’ve got a guy who has bad influences in his life and poor judgment, who only strives to stay on the right path for the game, and you’re forcing him to be seperated from it indefinitely.

And it’s indefinite. As it currently stands, unless the NFL uses discretion and judgment, he can only reapply for reinstatement on August 27th, 2015. Then, the prompt NFL ruling will surely take a few more weeks after that - he might not even be eligible to rejoin the team until a few games into the season. And then he’d be totally fresh, with no training camp or practice or playbook, or anything of the sort.

This whole thing has “tragic Browns bullshit that we’re all grumbling over 20 years from now” written all over it. “We had the brightest young star in the league, who shined for one season, and never played again” fits well into the factory of sadness lore.

All over the tiniest possible violation of an overly strict drug policy in which the accurate results were thrown away in a procedure that no one but the NFL follows, in what seems to be an arbitrary attempt to fuck people.

65

I’m curious on the thinking. Why would the NFL want to suspend one of their most exciting players for a year? Josh Gordon single-handedly revitalized the Browns and has been in the news. And he would make Johnny Manziel look like a legitimate NFL QB.

Why the hell would the not only want, but go out of their way (according to you), to suspend him for the year? To me, it makes no sense whatsoever for the NFL to WANT to have one of their most exciting players, one who could be a big part in the development of their latest poster boy Johnny Manziel, be gone for a year. Especially this year.

66

I don’t know. Because Goodell has a stick up his ass about being tough on his players, I guess. It really does seem against the interest of the NFL in this case. It does make me wonder - if this happened to Demaryius Thomas or Antonio Brown, do you think the results are the same?

edit:I guess the concern is setting a precedent. If they’re lenient on one guy on the issue, then will every other banned substance case go to arbitration after that? The NFL may need to be strict on its policies even when they’re obviously a misuse of power or a miscarriage of justice. Sort of like those stupid “zero tolerance” policies we have all over the place now. Do you really want to open the door to a precedent just to help the Browns? Eh.

Incidentally, Josh Gordon has never previously tested for pot in the NFL. He was caught smoking weed in college 4 years ago, which made him enter the NFL in their testing program. At that point, he got busted for having codeine in a prescription cough medicine when he was sick. The fucking idiocy of the NFL using codeine as a banned substance when they fucking load their players up on painkillers to dangerous levels constantly… anyway, that’s what put him in stage 3 of the program, at which point the extremely low pot result happened.

So we may have a career ended for 1) a prescription cough medicine with codeine legitimately prescribed for him when he was sick, and 2) a test for pot that literally would not have been a positive for any other major organization in the world except the nfl.

67

This is the 1994 MLB strike all over again. IF ONLY!!!

68

I, for one, am mad at the NFL (and not a Brown’s fan, Steeler’s fan, or otherwise have a dog in this race.) The NFL shouldn’t even be testing for non-performance enhancing drugs, much less an absurdly low standard of evidence here. What greater good does this serve?

And the contrast with Ray Rice really makes them look like they have their heads up their asses on this one.

69

This is about the exertion of power. An increasingly uncowed labor force is a nightmare scenario for the NFL and its unrelenting growth in profitability. There is no reason to suspend for marijuana use, this is merely a club with which to periodically pound the players over their heads, appease the dumbass fans and remind them who’s boss.

70

I approve of this entire rant, and I’ll add that if the league relaxed HGH testing in exchange for maintaining a strict policy against marijuana, then the whole knee-jerk “Durrrrrrrrrrrr but they collectively bargained it this way” hot-take pretty much flies out the window. Because if it was just a horse trade, so that the league could continue to act as the pot nazis, as you so amusingly put it, then what’s the principle? What vital league interest is at stake, such that all the lazy hack sportswriters refuse to question the senselessness of the policy? And even when they do question it, they never forget to include the caveat that Josh Gordon is really dumb and irresponsible and totally deserves all this, because to criticize the National Football League unreservedly wouldn’t be professional.

But hey, at least Ray Rice is really remorseful for beating up his fiancee.

71

I used to administer drug tests when I was in the Navy, and we had the 15ng/ml limit. The thing was that the first test was an immunoassay test, which is low accuracy. If the IA test was above the threshold they would test it again. The second test was a mass spectrometer/gas chromatograph. If it was positive on the ms/gc they would run another ms/gc to confirm the positive. Only if all 3 were positive was it regarded as a positive and the person would be kicked out. By the DOD’s standard, Josh Gordon’s test would be classified a negative, and life would go on. This is the test we give fighter pilots, aircraft mechanics, and the people who have their finger on the button in Ballistic Missile Subs. That the NFL test would be more stringent is laughable.

72

Goodness, my apologies to all NFL fans for what I wrote a couple of posts above. I meant only to criticize a small subset of them and wound up saying something extremely stupid instead.

73

Do you think the NFL is some sort of high-paying drug treatment program or something?

Again, I don’t agree with the standard, but that doesn’t change the fact that he knew the standard and put himself at risk anyway.

74

You know, talking about Josh Gordon being a knucklehead isn’t interesting at all and I’m amazed at that being what some posters want to focus on. There are tons of knuckleheads in the league. Basketball has knuckleheads, baseball has knuckleheads, I bet even curling and golf have them, too.

The NFL being run by a bunch of authoritarian assholes is what’s fun to talk about. Let’s take 'em outside and beat the shit out of 'em!

75

Nah. Let’s beat them up in public(figuratively, of course). Make them suffer the humiliation of having to change their stupid policy. That would hurt more than a physical beating.

76

Apparently the reason the NFL was dragging out announcing Gordon’s suspension was because they were trying to offer it as part of the bargaining chips to get the NFLPA to agree to HGH testing, per this pft article.

So they weren’t staying to a “rules are rules” stance, nor “this wakeup call is the best thing for Josh” stance, nor “he’s a bad role model” or anything like that. They were willing to let him go but kept to the suspension and dragged out the appeal in order to try to use him as a pawn to get a concession from the NFLPA. His career is threatened because of a negotiating tactic.

Then Welker gets busted for something, and Manning intervene, and suddenly now they’re going to rethink these things anyway. It’d be hard for them to bend the rules for one of the NFL’s darlings without looking like total hypocrites, so maybe they’ll let them both off.

77

Tangentially related: an explanation for all those Broncos players getting in trouble for substance abuse.

I have to admit, it makes a lot of sense…

78

They kept to the suspension because, well, he was facing a year suspension. A reduction due to a deal on something the players are being intransigent about constitutes a concession, and the implementation of the original term of suspension is not an undue punishment. His career is threatened because he can’t stay within the parameters of the CBA. Quit acting like the NFL is trying to screw him. He screwed himself.

79

The two are not mutually exclusive.

80

I don’t know what else to say, really. I can only suspect you are of the “rules are rules, zero tolerance” sort of mindset that crowds our prisons with victimless criminals and expels kids from school for drawing a picture with a cowboy with a gun. There are people for whom justice and the overall utility of an outcome are trumped by a strict adherence to the rules. Even if the rules are dumb (throwing out the results from the very accurate test in favor of the less accurate one, etc)

Josh Gordon smoked weed in college, along with about 80% of the rest of the school. How many people are punished and scrutinized in their first job by what they did in college? And not even for a real incident - just some pot.

Then he got prescription medication that contained some codeine when he was sick. This was his big crime that put him under super scrutiny again. Not relapsing into his old ways or doing something that actually harmed anyone. In a league where they pump you full of questionable amounts of painkillers to get you out there every week, he took some doctor-prescribed codeine for a sore throat. That got him a 4 game suspension (later reduced) and a ticket to the “we test you every 3 days, if we find a molecule of anything, fuck your career” stage of the program.

At this point Josh is under more scrutiny from the NFL than 99% of the players ever see, lots of whom do more serious drugs and commit actual crimes. Because he consumed some fucking prescription codeine for his sore throat. This was his great crime.

Then you know the rest. He tested positive in a way that LITERALLY NO OTHER ORGANIZATION IN THE WORLD, including ones where drug testing is actually a life and death matter, would consider a positive. A way that almost certainly indicated passive contact, secondhand smoke, which the NFL has expressly stated they don’t intend to suspend people for. He has this image as an iredeemable pothead, and yet in his time in the NFL, he never tested positive for weed until this ridiculously low test result came in.

If you think this is justice, you have some fucked up priorities. “Rules are rules, that’s the end of it” is some scary authoritarian thinking.

And even then, the NFL probably didn’t even want to suspend him. They probably wanted to forget the whole mess, but not without trying to exploit it against the CBA. They were hoping they could win-win and let him off, but when they couldn’t strong-arm the union, Josh had to pay the price.

Suddenly Welker gets caught for meth or whatever the hell that was, and oh, suddenly we’re going to rethink the policy and possibly retroactively forgive the infraction because Peyton Manning might suffer. I wonder where “rules are rules” goes then.