Josh Gordon and the NFL's Black Hole Suspension Process

Josh Gordon's last NFL game was on December 21, 2014. Now, after he failed another drug test, it's hard not to wonder if the startlingly talented 24-year-old receiver will ever play again.

Much of this uncertainty stems from the strange limbo that Gordon currently occupies in the league: he has served his yearlong suspension but has not yet been reinstated by Commissioner Roger Goodell, which is required for players falling under "Stage Three" of the league's substance-abuse policy.

Gordon applied for that reinstatement on January 20. While the policy appears to outline a timetable for the reinstatement process, a NFL spokesman told ESPN's Field Yates last month that "there is no requirement that a reinstatement decision be made in 60 days. We endeavor to develop the necessary information to make a decision in that time frame, but the actual decisions are made when appropriate." I reached out to the NFL on Monday myself, and received a simple "no timeline or update from here" on the situation. Then Fox Sports broke the news that Gordon failed a league-administered drug test last month. (Gordon seems to deny it.)

Nowhere does the Substance Abuse Policy specifically direct the NFL to continue suspending him, but it now looks like Gordon's application has been postponed until August.

Come 8/1, — Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet)April 12, 2016

So Gordon's career is just hanging out in purgatory. The Browns obviously can't count on him going forward, but at the same time Cleveland believes, at least for now, that he's talented enough to deserve another chance. And so he sits on their roster, although neither he nor the Browns nor anyone else has any idea when (or if) he'll actually play again.

Goodell is under no actual obligation to make a decision on any reinstatement application, and Josh Gordon isn't the only player to be stuck in the NFL's no-man's land. Cardinals linebacker Daryl Washington played his last NFL game on December 29, 2013. In 2014, he pleaded guilty to domestic violence charges, but his yearlong suspension that May was completely a response to his substance abuse.

In November, reports noted that Washington continued to have "violations" of the substance abuse policy while suspended, but there was no word on reinstatement or the things that would bring it to fruition. Washington admitted that he had no idea how the suspension was processing as of January 2015.

Fox's Jay Glazer said suspended — Darren Urban (@Cardschatter)November 22, 2015

NFL careers aren't long. The size and speed you need to be able play at the highest level are fleeting and finite. And because every NFL season is so short, a suspension has a disproportionate effect on a player's future in the NFL. If a football player gets suspended four games, he's considered a risk come contract time. When you get into longer punishments, teams begin to wonder how much skill a player has retained, or if someone who has sat out a year is in football shape. The entire football landscape rewards consistency and a certain kind of accountability—a self-erasing and unquestioning kind, but mostly one that's reliable. Anybody who can't hack that, for any reason, is looked at with skeptical eyes. Some of that is classic NFL rigidity, but some of it is basic human resources logic.

I'm not writing this to defend Gordon or Washington's actions. I don't believe that policing marijuana is a useful thing for the NFL (or the government, for that matter), but both players should be aware of how the decisions they make could impact their professional lives. For now, their fates rest almost wholly in the hands of Goodell. Same goes for Raiders linebacker Aldon Smith, who will surely miss this season, and Steelers wideout Martavis Bryant, a shining star last year who is now staring into the void. Banned from the team facilities and at the mercy of an opaque appeals process, suspended players disappear into a strange state of banishment. The last vivid memory fans have of Josh Gordon involves him shredding the league in his brilliant 2013 season, but no one knows if that version of Gordon still exists. His career has been all speculation and conjecture since then.

It will be up to Goodell to decide about these players and their futures, at his convenience and without having to answer to anybody. That does not exactly inspire confidence, and not just because Goodell's approach to any problem that could conceivably bring bad PR to the game is to cover his eyes and hope it goes away. Watching the NFL arbitrarily drag suspensions onwards without any real accountability or transparency is a hard pill to swallow.

It's impossible for players or their teams to plan for the future in a black hole of single-sentence "no news at this time" updates. This policy isn't in the best interests of the players, and it sure as hell isn't in the best interest of the teams that lose their talent.