Trying to Make Sense of a Bonkers Day for the Patriots

What a strange, strange day yesterday was for those of us who have a strong and sometimes psychologically exhausting connection to your New England Patriots. Even among a year that’s been full of such days. Can’t a guy just relax and focus on listening to “Jesus is King” in peace?

It started out innocently enough, with Brady politely giving any talk about retirement or his Netflix cameo a good leaving alone. There was more  fallout among the Jets over the lingering (possibly permanent) damage the Pats defense had done to Sam Darnold. You know, the usual.

Then in the afternoon we were treated to the majestic, awe-inspiring sight of Mohamed Sanu and a very healthy-looking Josh Gordon together on a practice field for the first time:

Only to find out in very short order that it would be for the only time:

And if you dig a little deeper beneath the topsoil, it got even more bizzaro. The team needed to free up a roster spot for Sanu. And earlier in the day, they announced they’d released TE Eric Tomlinson to make room. No surprise there. He was a roster bubble guy anyway. It made perfect sense. Understandably he wasn’t at practice. Then after Gordon was IR’ed, they said Tomlinson was never released:

Which is a weird move, announcing a non-move. Announcing that you’re NOT releasing someone and claiming that you never did. It begs the question of whether we can expect similar announcements about the non-releases of Devin McCourty, Stephon Gilmore or Julian Edelman. Later they clarified the Tomlinson news by saying you’re it, quitsies, no anti-quitsies, no startsies, triple stamp, no erasies, touch blue make it true.

Ian Rapoport went a step further and said not only is Gordon done for the year, but likely done with the Patriots for life:

But the day took a longer drive down Surreal Highway with this comment from Gordon himself:

To all my fellow seniors out there who still prefer to communicate in full sentences, let me explain the gravity of this. You know a man is serious when he skips over the Hand on the Chin thinking emoji and goes right to the One with the Monocle. The monocle is not to be trifled with. This is how you know he means business. So this is a not a matter to be taken lightly.

And with that, after staring into the catcher’s signs and taking a long windup, I’ll try deliver this pitch. Here’s my attempt to make some sense of this. With help from other, smarter people who know things.

My first thought – and I’m sure I’m not alone on mentioning this Brachiosaurus in the room – is that maybe Gordon’s problem wasn’t so much his knee as it’s his urine, if you know what I mean. I think we were all worried that perhaps he got injured falling off the wagon, so to speak. Fortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case. That as far as anyone can tell, he hasn’t fallen back under the evil spell of Lucifer’s Kale. That’s something we can all be grateful for, just on a human level.

The best anyone can tell is that the Patriots simply didn’t think his knee was going to hold up. That they have to start clearing roster space for N’Keal Harry, Isaiah Wynn, Rex Burkhead and some others, and that Gordon was the biggest risk going forward.

And as far as the strange move of putting him on IR only to waive him later instead of just releasing him now, there’s a practical reason. And it has to do with the calendar. If they release him now, he’s a free agent who – note the word “free” – can sign anywhere. Meaning he could land in Kansas City or Baltimore or any place where he becomes a concern for us later on. But waiting a week, he goes through waivers. Meaning he’d have to make it through all the downtrodden bottom feeder teams no one has to worry about.

And as always with the Patriots when it comes to roster management, there’s the complex, arcane cryptocurrency of the NFL salary cap math to consider. From Over the Cap:

Gordon falls in a really weird area in terms of contract protection because of his time in the NFL. … Gordon was just a restricted free agent in 2019 and signed a one year tender with the Patriots for $2.025 million … and the Patriots are pretty much starved for salary cap space.

Waivers are also tied to the looser retirement plan qualification so Gordon is not eligible. That would mean that if Gordon was released today he would be a free agent that was free to sign with any of the 31 other teams in the NFL and also collect the balance of his salary, about $1.08 million, from New England. However, if Gordon was eligible for waivers it would mean that if his contract was claimed the responsibility for the $1.08 million would go to the team that claims him. That solves some cap issues for New England.

It’s way more complicated than that, but reading any more of this runs the risk I’ll swallow my tongue from boredom and I want to live to see “The Rise of Skywalker,” so I’ll leave it at that.

The bottom line is that a freakishly strange situation at wide receiver just keeps setting freakishly stranger. It’s been like this all year. At least since I first started trying to wrap my brain around it as far back as March:

From their failed attempts to land the Two Adams, Humphries and Thielen, to the silence surrounding Gordon’s suspension to them drafting Harry in the 1st round only to see him go on IR to Antonio Brown burning bright then flaming out like a meteor. And I’ll include the strange saga of Austin Seferian-Jenkins, since he’s a hybrid TE/WR. The No. 1 receiver job on this team has been like the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. And now it belongs to Professor Sanu. Let’s hope he lasts longer than the others.

You know what the worst part of all of this is? That the way all this has played out made a genius out of this guy:

You know things have been weird when the blind squirrel that is Ben Volin finds an acorn.