Philadelphia Eagles were wise to pass on Josh Gordon

The Philadelphia Eagles were wise to pass on the opportunity to add Josh Gordon to their nest, period, point-blank, and end of the sentence.

By now, if you’re like everybody else, you’ve spent a little time looking at the last few days of Josh Gordon‘s time with the New England Patriots, and you saw that he was passed on by 27 teams before, eventually, landing with the Seattle Seahawks. One of the teams that said no was the Philadelphia Eagles. There was some debate, not much nut some, about whether or not that was the wisest thing for Philly to do.

It absolutely was, and to be honest, you have to wonder what the Seahawks were thinking. On the Friday, leading up to Week 9’s games that will be played on Sunday (and Monday night), the ‘Hawks had a slight Twitter buzz going as Mike Garafolo reported that Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll was ‘surprised’ that 27 other teams said no, and Russell Wilson sent out a welcome to the man known as ‘Flash Gordon’.

It’s surprising for two reasons. One, there’s always been a rumor that some of the brash members of ‘The Legion of Boom’ weren’t tight with Wilson. That’s never been said publicly, but it’s been a narrative for so long that you have to believe that the rumors came from somewhere.

There were also some theories that Carroll’s decision to call the worst play in Super Bowl history stemmed from the idea that the desire was for Wilson to be the hero (when handing the ball to Marshawn Lynch clearly made more sense).

Whether true or untrue, everyone sees what happened. All of those brash Seahawks were allowed to leave, and the ‘Hawks’ gave Wilson a four-year, $140 million contract extension on April 16th of 2019 to remain with the team. If alleviating distractions was the game plan, it’s hard to imagine why Seattle would now trade for Jadeveon Clowney or sign the oft-troubled Josh Gordon.

Then, there’s the Patriots. They stuck with Gordon through injury and a substance abuse problem, so why would they do all of that just to give up on him now? Recently, Tom E. Curran, a Patriots Insider for NBC Sports Boston, appeared on an edition of Pro Football Talk with Mike Florio, and he said Gordon’s release stemmed from a lack of work ethic and dependability.

Here’s some of what Curran had to say.

"I think the team had some trepidation once he wasn’t as prompt and punctual as he had been in the past. As his period of time when he was injured went on, there were occasions where he was late to meetings I understand. There were occasions they had a hard time locating him. So that in-dependability, coupled with the fact that he wasn’t extremely productive really when he was in there. They had N’Keal Harry coming back, they had just acquired Mohamed Sanu, and I think there was trepidation about, ‘OK, well if we’re looking at this again, do we want to rely on him?’ I think he had a very short rope that he was dealing with."

Kudos to the Pats for standing by Gordon. It was the right thing to do, but football is hard enough when people want to play. There isn’t much that you’re going to get out of a guy if he isn’t working hard or if his desire to play has evaporated.

At this point, that isn’t what an Eagles team that’s trying to save its season should be focused on. They need guys who are all in and getting to work on time, especially after some of what we heard over the course of the last few weeks. If Gordon doesn’t fit that bill, then, yes, Philly was wise to say no. Period.