Josh Gordon Thread: Reinstatement (Deja Vu)

[joshb]

If Weeden was any younger he would have gone much earlier in the draft. He's a good qb prospect, even if he won't be around as long.

[Captainzach1]

Green put up close to WR1 numbers with Dalton under center.

[WZA]

Green put up close to WR1 numbers with Dalton under center.

Exactly...

[Captainzach1]

Brandon Marshall is another that had a terrible qb situation last year.

Bowe is another.

Steve Johnson didn't have a pro bowl qb.

Garcon's numbers were comparable to Julios....he had the worst situation of them all

[DRS540]

Green put up close to WR1 numbers with Dalton under center.

Exactly...

Gordon isn't AJ Green. I love Gordon's potential. But he is a project.

[WZA]

Green put up close to WR1 numbers with Dalton under center.

Exactly...

Gordon isn't AJ Green. I love Gordon's potential. But he is a project.

Nobody is saying Gordon is AJ Green. The point being made is that while it certainly helps, you don't need an elite QB to put up WR1 numbers.

[TheOracle]

So only guys with the pedigree of Julio or Green are WR1 prospects...ok got it.

Tell that to guys like Greg Jennings, Victor Cruz, Steve Smith, etc.

Sorry, while I generally agree with what you're saying, it's a poor argument.

Let's not forget Cris Carter was a supplemental draft pick...

Very clearly not what I said. If you read even a little bit of that post, you'd see that it was primarily about the QBs those guys were playing with. Jennings and Cruz play with Rodgers and Manning. How good was Steve Smith the past three years with terrible QB play? WR1?

My point is not that only highly drafted WRs are WR1s, and not that only guys with great QBs are WR1s. It's that to project as a WR1, you either need to be a really, really special talent (Fitzgerald, Harvin with his rushing value), or you need to play in a good situation. The only guys I feel comfortable projecting as WR1s are AJ Green and Julio, and Gordon isn't that kind of prospect. His current situation has him with a sub-par QB playing opposite of a very comparably talented WR, so it's hard to imagine he's going to end up in a Bowe/Marshall situation where he just gorges on targets. (And for the record, those guys were WR2s.)

Being a WR2 is hardly an insult. There are really talented, useful guys in that tier. I just think it's unreasonable to predict that there will be a point in time where there are less than 10 WRs who are more productive than Gordon. When you look at the WR2s, (Marshall, Bowe, V. Jackson, Bryant, S. Johnson, A. Brown) do you really think there is a single Gordon owner who wouldn't be thrilled to end up with that type of production from him?


Note to WZA- you don't need an elite QB to put up WR1 numbers, but I think it's really, really tough to say that Gordon is talented enough to be a top 10/12 WR without playing with an elite QB.

[WZA]

So only guys with the pedigree of Julio or Green are WR1 prospects...ok got it.

Tell that to guys like Greg Jennings, Victor Cruz, Steve Smith, etc.

Sorry, while I generally agree with what you're saying, it's a poor argument.

Let's not forget Cris Carter was a supplemental draft pick...

Very clearly not what I said. If you read even a little bit of that post, you'd see that it was primarily about the QBs those guys were playing with. Jennings and Cruz play with Rodgers and Manning. How good was Steve Smith the past three years with terrible QB play? WR1?

My point is not that only highly drafted WRs are WR1s, and not that only guys with great QBs are WR1s. It's that to project as a WR1, you either need to be a really, really special talent (Fitzgerald, Harvin with his rushing value), or you need to play in a good situation. The only guys I feel comfortable projecting as WR1s are AJ Green and Julio, and Gordon isn't that kind of prospect. His current situation has him with a sub-par QB playing opposite of a very comparably talented WR, so it's hard to imagine he's going to end up in a Bowe/Marshall situation where he just gorges on targets. (And for the record, those guys were WR2s.)

Being a WR2 is hardly an insult. There are really talented, useful guys in that tier. I just think it's unreasonable to predict that there will be a point in time where there are less than 10 WRs who are more productive than Gordon. When you look at the WR2s, (Marshall, Bowe, V. Jackson, Bryant, S. Johnson, A. Brown) do you really think there is a single Gordon owner who wouldn't be thrilled to end up with that type of production from him?


Note to WZA- you don't need an elite QB to put up WR1 numbers, but I think it's really, really tough to say that Gordon is talented enough to be a top 10/12 WR without playing with an elite QB.

Note to TheOracle - it's too early to say that. We all know most WR take 2 - 3 years to fully develop. I remember people giving up on Roddy White until he exploded in year 3. I'm simply saying we haven't seen enough of Gordon to write him off as not a WR1 prospect. If he wasn't a junkie and actually played football last year, we might be talking about him like he was Blackmon.

I don't have Gordon on my roster, so it doesn't matter either way to me, but so far I like what I see from a guy who hasn't played ball in a year and has a rookie QB throwing to him. And just like Gordon, we don't have a large enough sample on Weeden to label him a mediocre QB. At this point, yes I agree...he looks pretty mediocre, but he is a rookie.

I have to disagree with you about Greg Little. The guy has stone hands and I can't for the life of me understand why so many people on DLF love him. He's good enough to command enough attention to free up Gordon, but I think Gordon will bypass his at some point IMO.

[TheOracle]

Yes, theoretically Josh Gordon could become Randy Moss. Guys often end up being a lot better than you think they'll be. I think when you're playing in dynasty leagues though, you have to have a reasonable projection of a guy. Saying Gordon is not a WR1 prospect does not mean it's impossible and you're "writing him off". You're just saying that, looking at all the evidence, he doesn't fit in to the very small group of young guys who realistically have WR1 upside. That's a really special group- AJG, Julio, Harvin, Nicks, and then maybe Dez or, stretching it, Blackmon. To say Gordon fits in that group is being unrealistic.

As for saying that we might be talking about him like Blackmon if he wasn't a junkie and actually played football last year, well, he did fail a bunch of drug tests and he didn't play football last year. Those things really happened. I like him, but I honestly felt like I was too high on him calling him a WR2 prospect.

[Hawks Nest 12th Man]

Agree that it's easier to predict wr1 production when a pro bowl caliber qb is throwing the ball. I like Gordon. Seems like the Browns are pushing him to succeed and start opposite of Little. This duo will be very interesting next season. Both were out of football for a year. Holmgren is generally pretty good at drafting wrs and o line that fact alone perks my interest. Side note any one else notice that wr1 s are torching ravens secondary? This could help little n Gordon .

[lukeb]

I've watched the ones play in all 3 of Cleveland's games. Aside from reaffirming my belief that Weeden was a dumb pick, it seems like you can actually see Gordon improve. He gets better every game, at least from what I saw. I'm no scout though.

[??Droppedballs??]

So only guys with the pedigree of Julio or Green are WR1 prospects...ok got it.

Tell that to guys like Greg Jennings, Victor Cruz, Steve Smith, etc.

Sorry, while I generally agree with what you're saying, it's a poor argument.

Let's not forget Cris Carter was a supplemental draft pick...

Very clearly not what I said. If you read even a little bit of that post, you'd see that it was primarily about the QBs those guys were playing with. Jennings and Cruz play with Rodgers and Manning. How good was Steve Smith the past three years with terrible QB play? WR1?


actually jennings had favre, rodgers was yrs into his career

[TheOracle]

Point stands that Jennings has played with elite QBs.

[bbwayne]

Gordon is already a wr1 on the Browns although that is not saying much. Even Mass has looked better then Little this preseason. I don't get the Little love.

[Water Buffalo]

Wow, those of you arguing with TheOracle in this thread just look silly. Every point he made was well thought out and very realistic. You're seriously going to come down on him because he projected a rookie on a bad team a year removed from playing football as more likely to have WR2 than WR1 upside? Unreal.

Yeah, Gordon COULD be a WR1 this year. He COULD be the #1 scoring player in all of fantasy football. Blaine Gabbert COULD be the highest scoring QB in fantasy this year too. That still doesn't mean you would or should predict/project it that way.

If anything, I think WR2 upside this year and next for Gordon is overly optimistic. It's very possible of course, but as of now I'd have a hard time expecting him to be anything more than a WR3. And it's not like WR3 is something terrible, that's the range of Dez Bryant, Laurent Robinson, Garcon, Wayne, Lloyd, Djax, Crabtree, DHB, and Torrey Smith last year.