The Josh Gordon Saga: Reinstated Conditionally
- Thread starter Ed Hillel
- Start date
I think part of the idiot thing is that he doesn't appear to take any steps to avoid his addiction. Even when suspended he never went to rehab, his DUI was in a car given to him by a felon/drug dealer who has gotten him and other college athletes in trouble with the NCAA. If he cut ties with some of his old drug buddies and went to rehab people would have more sympathy, but he doesn't seem to even make an effort to do the things you have to do if you are serious about controlling your substance abuse problems.GeorgeCostanza said:
We don't know if he was or not.
The point is the rule is pretty nuts. He's stupid to break it but it's a bad rule. You can drink and not drive. It wasn't the drinking that was the illegal part it was the and driving.
banning him from driving for a year, which is the penalty in the UK, makes more sense. Anyway dumb for breaking it.
The browns are also stupid for basically trapping him at their shirting organization with that dodgy one game suspension Costing him free agency. Bet he would have been better behaved if he was a free agent instead trapped at a place that ducked him over.
The point is the rule is pretty nuts. He's stupid to break it but it's a bad rule. You can drink and not drive. It wasn't the drinking that was the illegal part it was the and driving.
banning him from driving for a year, which is the penalty in the UK, makes more sense. Anyway dumb for breaking it.
The browns are also stupid for basically trapping him at their shirting organization with that dodgy one game suspension Costing him free agency. Bet he would have been better behaved if he was a free agent instead trapped at a place that ducked him over.
Will they keep drug testing him during the one-year suspension?
If not, he's about to go on one hell of a bender!
If not, he's about to go on one hell of a bender!
86spike said:
No, it doesn't.
It's the repeated inability to stop in the face of increasing consequences that essentially defines addiction. Non-addicts may get busted for a DUI or lose a relationship, but they realize that there was a problem and stop. People who go back to that behavior again and again are addicts. This is Gordon's 5th or 6th known problem over a 4 1/2 year period, just from college/NFL sanctions.
SumnerH said:
Pretty accurate comments based on my personal experience as well as my very extensive second hand experience dealing with addicts
I think if the non-addict could spend an hour living in the addict's brain, there's a decent chance we'd start treating addiction more like a broken arm or other medical condition than as a failure of "will power."
I think DDB means someone being an addict is an illness, whereas many people think it's caused simply by lack of will power.Devizier said:
Yeah, I was sort of talking about the disease itself and not so much how to treat it -- obviously it would be nice if all mental illnesses were treatable as easily as a broken arm. Hopefully, a neuroscience progresses, some day they will be.
My point was more that it's very likely or at least plausibly a real, physical condition, with physical and chemical causes, no different than a bone break. Or, at a minimum, that there are significant physical components along with psychological ones. It may be harder to identify, and current science may need to judge it somewhat less objectively, but I think the world would be a different place if we at least started the discussion by recognizing it as a real medical condition instead of some spooky inside-the-head thing that turns on how mentally "strong" or "weak" a person is.
I'm not a neuroscientist, and maybe one would tell me I'm completely full of shit, but what I was saying was that this might become crystal clear and obvious if we had the capacity to spend an hour living as a person who had the disease.
My point was more that it's very likely or at least plausibly a real, physical condition, with physical and chemical causes, no different than a bone break. Or, at a minimum, that there are significant physical components along with psychological ones. It may be harder to identify, and current science may need to judge it somewhat less objectively, but I think the world would be a different place if we at least started the discussion by recognizing it as a real medical condition instead of some spooky inside-the-head thing that turns on how mentally "strong" or "weak" a person is.
I'm not a neuroscientist, and maybe one would tell me I'm completely full of shit, but what I was saying was that this might become crystal clear and obvious if we had the capacity to spend an hour living as a person who had the disease.
Fwiw, the last person to ask about drug addiction is a scientist or a doctor
Ask an addict who is in recovery
Ask an addict who is in recovery
Devizier said:
We're really shitty at dealing with mental illness too, though. I think he intentionally chose something that was more broadly understood, hence, a broken bone.
"Have you tried having your arm not be broken?"
Yeah, its a bit off here, not entirely wrong though.DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
First off, addicition is an inference derived from a series of related physical conditions, because mental operations (i.e. what you call psychological components) are instantiated by a physical structure. It is often referred to as a disease, but it is more precise to refer to it as a mental illness itself.
Second, understanding mental illness is really, really hard. The brain is a complex system organized by multiple sub-systems defined at different spatial scales: from genetics and molecules to neurons, to networks, to cortical systems. Having a mental illness does not make you aware of how to treat said illness (though it made provide some insights). Furthermore, being inside someone else's head, you may not even be aware that you have a problem.
Third, the NIDA is notoriously awful at funding addiction research, because they rely on models that don't hold for primates and don't examine higher level scales of the brain appropriately. We really don't understand the mechanisms underlying addiction in humans at all, and worse, poor inferences have been made by using rodent models of addiction, which suck. Rodents don't habitually use most substances (e.g. nicotine, cannabis, alcohol), so the primary model of addiction revolves around opiod and dopamine (because rodents can become addicted to heroin or cocaine). In other words, there are likely multiple mechanisms for human addiction, which makes treating (say alchoholism) extremely difficult. For example, attention and task control are probably extremely important mechanisms for understanding addictive behavior, these mechanisms probably do not exist in rodents, and they aren't well studied in nictotine or alchohol abusers.
Finally, humans are variable. It is difficult for the vast majority of people to become addicted to alcohol/cannabis/nicotine, because most people respond negatively to over use of alcohol, nicotine, or cannabis.
successful treatment for drug addiction is very very simple, yet extremely diiffcult. As was said above by Eric, whether is is called a mental illness or a disease, treatment is very difficult.
I realize one reason that it is very difficult is that that it interferes with our using. the vast majority of drug addicts never get clean for any significant period of time due to this fact.
To be blunt about this, succesful treatment of drug addiction is not using drugs (often said one day at a time), by following the example of many others who have stayed clean for many years - and using their experience as an that example.
A friend of mine who recently died clean (got clean on 12/8/90) from a couple of secondary illnesses often said - If you want what we have, then you do what we do
I realize one reason that it is very difficult is that that it interferes with our using. the vast majority of drug addicts never get clean for any significant period of time due to this fact.
To be blunt about this, succesful treatment of drug addiction is not using drugs (often said one day at a time), by following the example of many others who have stayed clean for many years - and using their experience as an that example.
A friend of mine who recently died clean (got clean on 12/8/90) from a couple of secondary illnesses often said - If you want what we have, then you do what we do
Josh Gordon speaks up: https://medium.com/the-cauldron/an-open-letter-to-charles-barkley-co-cb5c4e64cf3
Second-hand marijuana smoke?Grin&MartyBarret said:
Either
A) He has the worst luck in the world, between getting caught in the tiny window for alcohol testing and getting caught in the even smaller window for second-hand marijuana smoking registering; or
B) He's using a lot more than he's claiming.
Either one on its own is barely plausible. Both together points strongly to (B).
Congrats to his lawyer, though.
SumnerH said:
You missed the most important part. The media treat him as mindlessly as they treat BB and the Patriots; therefore, we should trade for him to consolidate the media suck. Do you think Mallett for Gordon would be equitable?
SumnerH said:
I think the second-hand marijuana is very reasonable. The NFL limit at the time before the policy was revised was 15 ng/mL. It was reported (http://m.espn.go.com/nfl/story?storyId=11281430&src=desktop&wjb) that his A sample was 16 ng/mL and his B sample was 13.63 ng/mL. Other sports have a wildly higher threshold to trigger a positive test (MLB is 50 ng/mL, Olympic testing is 150 ng/mL). What kind of accuracy level do you think their assay has given that 2 samples from the same stream were ~2.5 ng/mL apart? Gordon was subject to an immense number of tests before finally 'failing' the marijuana one, so yes, I think it's very plausible that it was second hand smoke.
I'm generally sympathetic to Gordon's situation and think that he got screwed over with the marijuana testing, and now very unlucky with the alcohol test. I hope he's able to make it back on the field at some point, and that his career isn't over.
His first test result (on the immunoassay test, which is tougher to fool) was 38 ng/ml. He then had pee tests (which are far easier to dilute) at the levels you say. You need prolonged exposure in a sealed chamber and immediate testing to trip that first test. It's barely plausible on its own; in combination with his other "unlucky" results there's a clear pattern.semsox said:
e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25326203 showed levels above 20 ng/ml in a minority of smokers who were exposed to heavy hot-boxing, and they all dipped below that level in 4-6 hours. Nobody in a normally ventilated room showed anything in that range. That's pretty consistent with other studies on the topic. On its own you could maybe chalk it up to really bad luck; when combined with other results, the odds that it's all bad luck look vanishingly small.
I think he meant that he was shotgunning?SumnerH said:
Absolutely.MalzoneExpress said:
He's unlucky, but he's also a little dumb. The rest of the season does not equate to the rest of the regular season. He had 4 drinks on a flight (technically six if two of those "drinks" were mini-bottles, but then again, the beers were probably light so it probably comes to four anyways) before the NFL season was over. He was unlucky to get tested four hours afterwards, but it was also kind of dumb.
I would also completely agree that he got an unfair treatment from the NFL, but that can be said of most NFL players.
I read the interview where he said he hasn't smoked since 2002 or whatever, but shotguns are done to get more smoke in your lungs to get you higher. That's not second hand smoke; it's first hand smoke powered down your throat until your entire chest is full of smoke. I haven't even heard that term since I was like 17.EricFeczko said:
Josh Gordon's open letter is excellent:
https://medium.com/the-cauldron/an-open-letter-to-charles-barkley-co-cb5c4e64cf3
https://medium.com/the-cauldron/an-open-letter-to-charles-barkley-co-cb5c4e64cf3
I thought the first immunoassay test was a urine test, and that the second test uses mass spectrometry?SumnerH said:
If so the MS test is going to be vastly more accurate than a paper measuring strip (typical immunoassay).
If you have mass spec results for a small molecule you should probably discount other measurements.
Bumping the thread as there is word that Josh failed a recent drug test.. He applied for reinstatement in February and was tested in March.
http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/josh-gordon-fails-another-nfl-administered-drug-test-041116
http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/josh-gordon-fails-another-nfl-administered-drug-test-041116
I know marijuana isn't really all that dangerous compared to many other things both legal and illegal, but anyone who loves weed so much that he allows it to basically end his multi-million dollar career has a problem.
Playing for that disaster of an organization could turn nearly anyone to pot to try and find a happy place. Seriously you are wasting talent playing for an organization that gives Johnny cocaine Manziel that many chances? I'd be high all the time also, the NFL is a one hit away league. It still blows me away that something that is now legal in many states(and I believe will be nationally in 5-7 years) with studies showing reduction in concussion recovery time is treated like this. I may be in the 5% on this one, but it's just crazy to me that this carries career ending repercussions in 2016, I hope that someday we can look back at these cases and laugh about how once the NFL dumped Roger it all turned around because the path we're on right now has the NFL dead in a decade.
On the other hand - do you think the Browns would take a 6th rounder? It would be a lottery ticket, but the kid when not suspended is an insanely proven talent which is a hell of a lot more than usual value at that level... Can a player under suspension looking for reinstatement even be traded? I found some articles seeming to indicate it can happen...
On the other hand - do you think the Browns would take a 6th rounder? It would be a lottery ticket, but the kid when not suspended is an insanely proven talent which is a hell of a lot more than usual value at that level... Can a player under suspension looking for reinstatement even be traded? I found some articles seeming to indicate it can happen...
Plural as in years? Or moot?
Reportedly living with Manziel off Sunset Blvd, and the four-letter reported a few hours ago that Josh failed a drug test last month -- two samples had traces of weed and dilute. The latter of which is sufficient itself to get you the "F".
What a tragic waste.
Not sure which thread to post in...
I don't know Gordon or care about him in any sports-fan sense, but this story bothers me. What justifies the NFL destroying this man's career because he uses marijuana?
Certainly not because he broke a law - if he rode a motorcycle without a helmet they wouldn't suspend him. Moreover, if he smoked pot in Colorado he didn't break a law. The law-breaking angle is clearly not justifiable.
It wasn't because he used a substance that gave him a competitive advantage.
So why - what is the logic behind the purpose of a suspension of the NFL for having used marijuana?
If I were him I'd sue the NFL.
(For the record, I don't use marijuana, but I do care about logic being the basis for any system of justice.)
I don't know Gordon or care about him in any sports-fan sense, but this story bothers me. What justifies the NFL destroying this man's career because he uses marijuana?
Certainly not because he broke a law - if he rode a motorcycle without a helmet they wouldn't suspend him. Moreover, if he smoked pot in Colorado he didn't break a law. The law-breaking angle is clearly not justifiable.
It wasn't because he used a substance that gave him a competitive advantage.
So why - what is the logic behind the purpose of a suspension of the NFL for having used marijuana?
If I were him I'd sue the NFL.
(For the record, I don't use marijuana, but I do care about logic being the basis for any system of justice.)
Wait, did you just use the word "justice" at the end of your post? A system of justice? As in, you believe that the goal here is justice?
The goal here is for the NFL to do what enough people agree is the right thing to do, enough of the time, such that nobody leads any huge media-driven crusades to shame the business for not adhering to some arbitrary standards of public morality. Consider Ray Rice as a cautionary tale of what happens when you're too lenient, and say Martavis Bryant for what the public outcry is when you're too draconian (i.e., nothing). It's a system of politics, and like our big-boy system of politics, it is capricious, cynical, and often self-contradictory. It bears resemblance to the legal system only insofar as it is useful to the business to seem so.
The goal here is for the NFL to do what enough people agree is the right thing to do, enough of the time, such that nobody leads any huge media-driven crusades to shame the business for not adhering to some arbitrary standards of public morality. Consider Ray Rice as a cautionary tale of what happens when you're too lenient, and say Martavis Bryant for what the public outcry is when you're too draconian (i.e., nothing). It's a system of politics, and like our big-boy system of politics, it is capricious, cynical, and often self-contradictory. It bears resemblance to the legal system only insofar as it is useful to the business to seem so.
For the record I do use marijuana. The NFL has a policy in place where it is illegal to use. It's a job requirement that you pass a drug test. I've worked for an employer where drug use was illegal and we had to take a piss test as terms of employment.
The point is if you want to work for that organization, don't do it. For $10 million I could be clean as they wanted for as long as they were paying me. It's not a lifetime commitment.
The point is if you want to work for that organization, don't do it. For $10 million I could be clean as they wanted for as long as they were paying me. It's not a lifetime commitment.
I think both sides are correct here. As long as there is a rule on the books, you have to obey it, and it's crazy to put your incredibly high-paying job at risk over it. I can't see a lawsuit being successful here, as a previous post suggested.
At the same time, the NFL should take a more pragmatic approach to their drug policy in the future. Pot is not performance enhancing, and it's very popular among athletes. They should do what the MMA does and increase the testing threshold so that you only test positive if you're currently high...or just ignore it entirely. Let teams handle any marijuana-related job performance issues, just as they currently do with alcohol.
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The reasons go back to Len Bias's dying from an overdose of DRUGS in the 1980's and the decision as a society at that time that DRUGS were the biggest problem we faced. (Larry Bird said so himself.)
The line between then and now runs straight through GHWB holding a bag of DRUGS in a televised address from Oval Office that he pointed out were sold right across the street from the White House (because that's where the cops asked the dealer to deliver them). "Make no mistake," he told us. "This scourge will end!"
The line, ironically, continues through three more recent Presidents who used DRUGS when they were "young and irresponsible", to quote one of them.
And the line runs through cavity searches taking place in much more recent times, as I just posted here, because we are fighting still, this war on DRUGS. (Go get yourself a barf bag before you click on that link, though.)
It's been pretty well established how easy it is to avoid being busted for pot in the NFL testing schedule. Is the rule antiquated and on its way out? Yes. Does it take a moron to be unable to work the system and avoid a violation? Yes.
I have no sympathy for these guys and I say that as an occasional pot user and someone that thinks it should be legal. But they have a schedule for testing. If they pass in the offseason they don't get tested again. That test is lined up far in advance. If you can't get your shit together and stop smoking pot to pass the one test a year you deserve what you get. The NFL turns a blind eye to a lot of drug use, but they can only help so much.
I have no sympathy for these guys and I say that as an occasional pot user and someone that thinks it should be legal. But they have a schedule for testing. If they pass in the offseason they don't get tested again. That test is lined up far in advance. If you can't get your shit together and stop smoking pot to pass the one test a year you deserve what you get. The NFL turns a blind eye to a lot of drug use, but they can only help so much.
Respectfully, I don't think you can put ANY of this on the Browns. I mean, yeah, it must suck playing for a rudderless, out of the running team. And having a good support system in place would likely help. It could not hurt.
But our friend Aaron Hernandez played for a perennial winner, had role model teammates (or at least some guys like that) and the Pats are known as a first class organization with respect to how they treat their players.
To me, this all comes down to really stupid individual choices, and the blame is entirely on Josh Gordon, with no excuses for finding a happy place with pot (or anything else that would deprive him of enough money to be set for life if it was properly managed). The guy is clearly a mess.
That doesn't mean I wouldn't want the Pats to try to pry him away for the Browns down the road, not that I think that's likely from either side.
The timing on this Schefter tweet is odd:
@AdamSchefter So if all goes well and if Josh Gordon stays clean - big ifs - he could be reinstated to play the 2016 season.
NFL has suspended the reinstatement. Schefter must be referring to what NFL after the latest failed test, but that means Goodell & Co. will allow a mulligan?
@AdamSchefter So if all goes well and if Josh Gordon stays clean - big ifs - he could be reinstated to play the 2016 season.
NFL has suspended the reinstatement. Schefter must be referring to what NFL after the latest failed test, but that means Goodell & Co. will allow a mulligan?
if you placed people's opinions on this issue on a spectrum, with "sad story" on one end and "idiot getting his just desserts" on the other, I would land toward the "sad story" end of the spectrum.
Pot isn't addictive like narcotics or tobacco, or even alcohol, so part of Gordon's problem is a lack of impulse control. He has also been busted for driving under the influence of alcohol, which does put people at risk; even a reformed, enlightened NFL substance abuse policy might punish someone with Gordon's track record for testing positive for pot. The current policy, however, treats Josh Gordon's demons as a greater threat to the integrity of the game than Greg Hardy's or Donte Stallworth's. That's not right.
Pot isn't addictive like narcotics or tobacco, or even alcohol, so part of Gordon's problem is a lack of impulse control. He has also been busted for driving under the influence of alcohol, which does put people at risk; even a reformed, enlightened NFL substance abuse policy might punish someone with Gordon's track record for testing positive for pot. The current policy, however, treats Josh Gordon's demons as a greater threat to the integrity of the game than Greg Hardy's or Donte Stallworth's. That's not right.
I think the Browns deserve some blame. Is Gordon's record/behavior so much worse than other players? From what I've read he seems comparable to many players and better than Hardy. The Browns approach has failed, it's possible the Cowboys would have failed with him as well.
But it's also possible that Gordon could have benefitted from the treatment the Cowboys gave Bryant. He's out of football for getting high and he should be able to pass those tests even when smoking. Bryant's plan with the Cowboys has a security person with him at all times.
Maybe I'm not up on everything Gordon's done or what the Browns have tried with him, just seems as if he were better managed, the Browns could have him playing today.
I had thought that the drug testing schedule was fairly predictable as long as you have not had a positive test and been entered into the "program." Once you've been caught, I was under the impression that they can and will test you randomly at any point during the season or offseason.
My impression is that the league discipline is run primarily on the league's perception of the public's perception of an issue and there are many components at play including the P.R. value of the infraction and the P.R. value of the perpetrator of the infraction.
Some bad behaviors are disciplined based on a rather random and antiquated P.R. standard. For some reason, getting caught attempting to cheat the tests for P.E.D.s is less of a P.R. nightmare for the league than getting caught smoking weed. Domestic violence used to be slap on the wrist but is now very heavily punished due to the fall out from the Rice video, and the Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy incidents.
In addition, some players and organizations are viewed as 'bad guys' by the league, and the hammer will just continually fall hard on those players/teams for the slightest of infractions. Other players and organizations, however, seem to be able to skate by for similar or worse infractions.
Once you, as a player, fall into the 'bad guy' category, you have a much harder road to navigate. The league will call this 'repeat offender' but there is much more at play. Some organizations (like the Giants) are probably better able to help a player navigate the fine line of league discipline based on the owner's influence, the media presence for that team's market, etc. A player who plays for an organization like the Browns where the team is perpetually viewed as a laughing stock is going to get less of a benefit of the doubt than a player on another team.
The league's quasi-P.R. shell game when it comes to discipline is at the heart of all of the recent battles between the league and the players union. The league desperately wants to be able to react quickly to incidents based primarily on P.R. damage control. They do not give a shit about player's rights or health nor do they really give a shit about fairness or the integrity of the league.
In short, Josh Gordon's best option to rehabilitate his image and his career is probably to sign with an organization with built-in goodwill.
Some bad behaviors are disciplined based on a rather random and antiquated P.R. standard. For some reason, getting caught attempting to cheat the tests for P.E.D.s is less of a P.R. nightmare for the league than getting caught smoking weed. Domestic violence used to be slap on the wrist but is now very heavily punished due to the fall out from the Rice video, and the Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy incidents.
In addition, some players and organizations are viewed as 'bad guys' by the league, and the hammer will just continually fall hard on those players/teams for the slightest of infractions. Other players and organizations, however, seem to be able to skate by for similar or worse infractions.
Once you, as a player, fall into the 'bad guy' category, you have a much harder road to navigate. The league will call this 'repeat offender' but there is much more at play. Some organizations (like the Giants) are probably better able to help a player navigate the fine line of league discipline based on the owner's influence, the media presence for that team's market, etc. A player who plays for an organization like the Browns where the team is perpetually viewed as a laughing stock is going to get less of a benefit of the doubt than a player on another team.
The league's quasi-P.R. shell game when it comes to discipline is at the heart of all of the recent battles between the league and the players union. The league desperately wants to be able to react quickly to incidents based primarily on P.R. damage control. They do not give a shit about player's rights or health nor do they really give a shit about fairness or the integrity of the league.
In short, Josh Gordon's best option to rehabilitate his image and his career is probably to sign with an organization with built-in goodwill.