Marijuana – revisited

It’s been over a month since Josh Gordon acknowledged he would be suspended for the 2014 NFL season due to a violation of the league’s substance abuse policy. Gordon tested positive for marijuana. It’s been over two weeks since that one year suspension was reduced to 12 games. However, the story of Josh Gordon hasn’t quite faded to the background.

On Oct. 1, ESPN ran a story on Gordon written by senior staff writer Elizabeth Merrill. The article can be found online and in ESPN The Magazine's Oct. 13 Cleveland Issue. The title of the article as it’s currently running on ESPN.com is “What’s Next for Josh Gordon?”

That’s a fair question. Despite only playing 14 games last year, Gordon led the NFL in receiving. He caught 87 passes for 1,646 yards and nine touchdowns. When looking at the current offense of the Cleveland Browns and the fact that the team’s leading receiver is the 5-foot-7-inch, 180-pound Andrew Hawkins, one would hope that the answer to “What’s Next for Josh Gordon?” is that he will return to the Browns in Week 12 and catch some damn passes from Johnny Football.

Of course, Merrill’s answer wouldn’t be that simple. At the top of the ESPN webpage where the story runs is a green header with “Hot Read” in black text. According to ESPN, the “Hot Read series takes an in-depth look at the people and issues shaping the NFL's present and future.” The piece is long form and fit to print in a magazine. Merill took some time to get personal with Gordon in her article. In doing so, she brought back to the surface the tired, reductionist sports media trope of fitting the story of every single suspended black athlete into a redemption narrative.

The article reads formulaically. It explores Gordon’s day-to-day life as a suspended NFL player, and also peeks back to his childhood. It talks about Gordon’s mother, their financial situation and his older brother. It talks about the urine tests he has to take constantly, and the rehab programs Gordon checked himself into. The arc is simple. It is not as if the article vilifies Gordon. In fact, it’s the opposite. It tries so hard to humanize the story of Gordon. But Gordon already is human. All he did was smoke some weed.

The article goes on to portray the NFL as a savior, as life-changing structure. It posits that Gordon’s terrible marijuana problem is something only an institution as fine as the National Football League can cure. This attitude is lazy, dangerous and inconsistently applied. The NFL isn’t doing anyone any favors. If I was Gordon’s doctor, I’d rather have him blazing occasionally than taking the type of full strength, head-on collisions that have become characteristic of the NFL.

Additionally, we need to take a look at who gets these articles written about them. Broncos’ receiver Wes Welker was suspended this off-season for amphetamine use. Nobody wrote articles about his family. When the drug use is believed to be performance enhancing like Welker’s was, it is almost written off. But heaven forbid it be recreational.

I’m not really sure what will be next for Josh Gordon. I hope that he returns this year and has a long NFL career. However, I hope the NFL does not serve as his moral center. His suspension isn’t constructive; it’s an annoyance. Josh Gordon is not a bad person for smoking weed, no matter how badly the NFL wants us to think so.