Patriots head coach Bill Belichick didn’t have anything to share beyond his initial statement about wide receiver Josh Gordon’s reinstatement, but one of the team’s veterans was willing to talk about the wideout’s return.
Belichick’s statement said that the Patriots will “evaluate the entire situation” when Gordon rejoins the team and special teams ace Matthew Slater’s thoughts weren’t about how Gordon will fit into the football side of things. Slater instead focused on supporting Gordon as a person.
“We are excited,” Slater said, via NBCSportsBoston.com. “I’ll say this: Football is number two. We want to see him first and foremost doing well as an individual, doing well as a man, and we want to support him however we can. We’re just going to take this one day at a time, which is all any of us can do. And we’ll see what tomorrow brings and then we’ll let the day after that worry about it when it comes around.”
The NFL’s statement on Gordon’s reinstatement said that he is free to join the team on Sunday for meetings and conditioning work. Moving on to practice is “subject to appropriate progress on clinical care and other arrangements” and Gordon will be allowed to attend, but not participate in, Thursday’s preseason game.