HE'S NOT JOSHING AROUND
REMARKABLE achievements are remarkable because they don’t happen often. This also makes them quite hard to predict. If you make a habit of predicting things that never have happened before to happen for the first time, if you’re trying to foretell an outlier, you’re going to be wrong almost all the time.
Never before has a player returned from a three-year absence brought on by suspensions and a battle against addiction like Josh Gordon heading into Week 13. We have seen players return after long layoffs but normally not that long. Most of those players who return from extended absences don’t make a big splash immediately.
So if you’re playing the odds, Gordon was not going to make a major impact. He has one sensational season on his track record, 2013. Because of suspensions, he played just five games in 2014, and they were nothing special.
Now, back on the field for the first time in three years, there was no reason to expect a breakout game. There was every reason to anticipate slow progress while getting up to speed on the offense, in sync with the quarterback, back into game shape. Before being an impact player, he was going to need to make the kind of progress that normally takes weeks.
And remember, for us to be wrong about this would require the Browns to be right about something. So pardon the Mad- man if he wasn’t ready to gamble on the long odds of instant fantasy impact. Forgive us for expecting the expected, what we have seen before from others, what we had seen most recently from Gordon, what we have seen routinely with the Browns in general: disappointment.
And look, it is just one game, and we don’t want to get bent out of shape, but his production surprised us, just not nearly as much as his use.
Gordon hauled in four passes for 85 yards. That’s good for a 12.5 PPR day — acceptable but nothing to perform a choreographed touchdown celebration about. This, on the other hand, is something that should have Gordon gamblers grinning with glee: 11 targets.
The Browns threw to him often. DeShone Kizer attempted 32 passes, so Gordon got a healthy 34.4 percent of targets. By comparison, on the opposite side of the ball, top Chargers receiver Keenan Allen — a target monster — was the intended receiver on 14 of Philip Rivers’ 43 attempts, or 32.5 percent.
One of Gordon’s 11 targets, he was comfortably open, and it easily could have been a 44-yard touchdown and 10.4 additional PPR points, if not slightly overthrown.
A good game can be a mistake. High-volume outings by players who aren’t a big part of the offense are outliers — and remember how we feel about outliers? So perhaps the Madman was wrong. Maybe there is some gold to be found at the end of the 2017 Josh Gordon rainbow.
He gets a weak Packers secondary this week. Dig into your newfound pot of gold and play him with confidence.