Cris Carter has seen enough out of troubled wide receiver Josh Gordon.
Carter thinks the Browns should cut their losses and release Gordon.
Gordon was just arrested for driving under the influence. He's also facing a potential season-long suspension for violating the NFL drug policy again.
"He loves football more than anything, so I would take that away,'' Carter told The Cleveland Plain Dealer."When I say they should cut him, I say that because I believe that will be the catalyst to help. When you're falling in life, at some point you have to make a bottom floor and say 'this is it for me. I'm going to establish my house on this right here. And I'm going to build up.''
Carter conquered addictions to cocaine and alcohol and has been sober for decades.
"If you don't get help, you keep falling and it gets worse," Carter said. "Obviously the support system he has now doesn't work, so I would develop a new support team and it wouldn't be with the Browns. It would be people like myself, it would be people like (former NBA star and addiction specialist) John Lucas, and other NFL players. I'd have him go somewhere. I wouldn't give up on him, but I think I'd do the things to get his attention so that he does the things he needs to do.'
"Gordon needs to save his life now. He needs to learn to live substance-free, and the team isn't going to be able to help him do that now. If he wants to play football, he's going to have to show substantial progress in the next year for the NFL to allow him to play ever again. I'm not concerned about the Browns. I'm concerned about the team they put around him now.''
What's the answer? According to Carter, Gordon needs to go to rehab.
"We're dealing with addiction,'' Carter said. "We're dealing with a disease. If Josh had cancer, we'd put him in a treatment center, and right now that's what we need to do. But no one wants to do the hard thing. Everyone wants to keep coddling him the same way they did in high school, the same way they did him at Baylor, which he had problems (there), and eventually it's going to blow up. Now it's blowing up in front of the National Football League and his career is in jeopardy.''
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Aaron Wilson covers the Ravens for The Baltimore Sun