Josh Gordon’s Twitter sets some fans’ hearts aflutter

The Cleveland Browns have moved on from suspended wide receiver Josh Gordon, but parts of Browns Twitter can’t let it go.

It has been a quite few months for former Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon since his latest bid for reinstatement was denied by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

But after almost four months of social media silence, Gordon dropped the following Tweet early on Friday afternoon:

https://twitter.com/JOSH_GORDONXII/status/893509020732055557

And, in predictable fashion, some Browns fans quickly came to the conclusion that the Tweet is an indication that Gordon is on the cusp of returning to the NFL and, in theory, the Browns.

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This is all getting very tiresome as Browns fans have been through all this before: Gordon will Tweet out something that has nothing to do with football, some fans will read it as a sign, and then nothing happens.

The latest cycle started in May with the news that Gordon’s latest reinstatement bid was shot down but that he could try again “in the fall.” Now, that may not be as technical as having to wait until the autumnal equinox on Sept. 22, but trying to make the argument that “the fall” is the first of August is a bit of a stretch.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it is.

Gordon was suspended for the first two games of the 2013 season, followed that up with an 11-game suspension for the 2014 season, and went all the way with a season-long suspension in 2015.

It looked as if Gordon just might come back last season, as he was conditionally re-instated by the NFL and was scheduled to return following a four-game suspension to open the season. That all fell apart after he entered a rehab facility and has remained on the suspended list ever since.

Put it all together, and Gordon has only played in 19 of Cleveland’s last 64 games due to suspensions.

Last fall head coach Hue Jackson made it public that the Browns had reached the end of the road with Gordon, according to cleveland.com:

"“What’s best for our football team is that we move forward and move on. He’s not going to be with us and we wish him well, but we’re moving forward. We’re going to move on. Obviously Josh is not here and doing what he thinks he needs to for his life which we support 100 percent and after today, today is really the last Josh Gordon comment I want to make about that.”"

You would think that statement would have finally got the message across to everyone, but as today revealed that was not the case.

It is hard to see why Gordon still holds so much loyalty from some Browns fans. Outside of a 14-game stretch in 2013, Gordon has done nothing on or off the field. Even if he were allowed back into the NFL, and Jackson brought him back on the team, and Gordon took the field in Week 1 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, it will have been 33 months since he last appeared in an NFL game that mattered.

Next: The definitive DPD retrospective of Josh Gordon

It has been true for some time now, but apparently it warrants repeating: it is time to accept that Josh Gordon is not coming back.