{"id":83644,"date":"2020-03-29T11:36:31","date_gmt":"2020-03-29T15:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=83644"},"modified":"2021-03-26T19:15:23","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T23:15:23","slug":"melvin-gordon-signing-pros-cons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2020\/03\/29\/melvin-gordon-signing-pros-cons\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pros and Cons of Signing Melvin Gordon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/den\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Denver Broncos<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/2020\/03\/20\/melvin-gordon-signs-with\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recently signed<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/G\/GordMe00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Melvin Gordon<\/strong><\/a> to a two-year deal worth $16 million. \u00a0This signing could turn out to be a great deal for the broncos or possibly a waste of money.\u00a0 Melvin Gordon has spent the beginning of his career as a member of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/sdg\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Angeles Chargers<\/a>.\u00a0 Gordon had a stronger offer from another team but decided to take Denver&#8217;s offer to stay in the AFC West.\u00a0 As of right now, there seems to be some positives and negatives that might come out of this signing.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\">The Pros and Cons of Signing <strong>Melvin Gordon<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The Pros<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"s2\">Denver now has two pro bowl running backs on their roster, giving them one of the best backfields in the NFL.\u00a0 <\/span><span class=\"s2\">Gordon brings everything to the table in his game that Lindsay lacks, namely, power running and a receiving threat.\u00a0 <\/span><span class=\"s2\">Melvin Gordon only received a two-year deal, which means Denver isn\u2019t attached to Gordon, if they don\u2019t want to be, for the long run. <\/span>Gordon gives the Broncos young starting quarterback, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/L\/LockDr00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drew Lock<\/a>, <\/strong>and new Offensive Coordinator, Pat Shurmur, another weapon to help increase their offensive output in 2020.\u00a0 Another thing that Gordon brings to the table is his efficiency over his career at scoring touchdowns in the redzone. Denver has struggled in red zone scoring the last two years so the match could end up being very beneficial for Denver&#8217;s redzone offense.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The Cons<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"s2\">An unwritten role to live by for NFL general managers is that you shouldn\u2019t give running backs big contracts because it is such a disposable position.\u00a0 There are many examples of running backs who received huge contracts and the ended up not living up to their price tag.\u00a0 Another problem is that t<\/span><span class=\"s2\">here is only one football, and Gordon will get limited opportunities because of him having to share touches with <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/L\/LindPh00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Phillip Lindsay<\/a><\/strong> and maybe even <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/F\/FreeRo00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Royce Freeman. <\/a><\/strong><\/span><span class=\"s2\">The Broncos could have used the money spent on Gordon to further upgrade the offensive line and protect Drew Lock.\u00a0 <\/span>Gordon takes carries away from Phillip Lindsay who has proven to be a very good running back in the NFL.\u00a0 Running backs<span class=\"s2\">\u00a0on average start to see a decline around 27 years of age and Melvin turns 27 in April.\u00a0 <\/span>Gordon shared snaps with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/E\/EkelAu00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Austin Ekeler<\/strong><\/a> last year, and it didn\u2019t work well for him last year.<\/p>\n<p>Melvin Gordon has shown in the past that he can\u2019t be an elite NFL running back, although he has been inconsistent from year to year.\u00a0 He is going to have to share time with Lindsay which can be detrimental to some and beneficial to others. Denver is hoping that Gordon will fit their system and be able to produce as well as he has before.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"78vk0vzUS1Zl-29rIYOBlw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1191409340\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'78vk0vzUS1Zl-29rIYOBlw',sig:'ISO8QCNWjugBpz99GvUZoF8JWfJChlRqHkrYlhXy4Ow=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1191409340',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melvin Gordon has shown in the past that he can\u2019t be an elite NFL running back, although he has been inconsistent from year to year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3381,"featured_media":83842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,54,2],"tags":[5168,266,4069,61,609,4348,3824],"class_list":["post-83644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broncos","category-editorials","category-featured","tag-2020-nfl-free-agency","tag-denver-broncos","tag-drew-lock","tag-football","tag-melvin-gordon","tag-phillip-lindsay","tag-royce-freeman"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3381"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}