Philadelphia Eagles report: Josh Gordon won’t make his debut in Week 4

In case you haven’t heard, Frank Clark is officially out for the Kansas City Chiefs for their Week 4 bout against the Philadelphia Eagles (more on that here).

Understandably, this is great news for Nick Sirianni‘s squad. Clark is one of the Chiefs’ two-best defensive linemen and one of their few defensive players regardless of position with multiple Pro Bowls on their resume. Even if shutting down the Chiefs’ rush isn’t the Eagles’ most significant issue, that would be limiting KC’s dominant aerial attack, having one less Clark to worry about is good news.

Want some more good news on this beautiful Sunday morning? Josh Gordon, the oft suspended but supremely talented wide receiver who just signed with the Chiefs on September 28th, isn’t expected to make his debut for them until Week 5, seven days after the Eagles game is in the books.

After a slew of bad news over the past few weeks, from IR trips to underwhelming run-pass ratios, this is another rare bit of good news for a Philadelphia Eagles squad who just got Jack Driscoll and Josiah Scott off of injured reserve.

No Josh Gordon is good news for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Don’t let the 1-2 record fool you: The Kansas City Chiefs’ offense is still as potent as ever.

They still have Mecole Hardman and Tyreek Hill, two of the fastest receivers in the league, and Travis Kelce, who remains one of the best do-it-all tight ends in the league, and oh yeah, Patrick Mahomes, who remains the league’s best young quarterback until proven otherwise. Factor in the emergence of Clyde Edwards-Helaire as a legit rushing/receiving combo threat, and you’re left with a stable of offensive weapons with very few holes.

Very few, however, is not zero, and if one had to identify a weakness in the Cheifs’ offense weapons, it would probably be Demarcus Robinson, who has yet to fully fill the shoes of Sammy Watkins, who left the KC kingdom for beautiful Baltimore, Maryland on a one-year, $6 million contract back in April.

Since arriving in Kansas City in 2016 as a fourth-round pick out of Florida, Robinson has appeared in 83 games with 35 starts while hauling in passes from everyone from Alex Smith to Nick Foles, and eventually Mahomes. He’s hauled in 126 catches on 194 targets for 1,487 yards and 12 career touchdowns for a 7.7 yards per target average while catching 64.9 percent of the balls thrown his way.

Are those numbers bad per se? No. For a third wide receiver, they are actually pretty good, especially since Robinson didn’t really come into his own until 2019, but it’s hard to argue that the player affectionately known as the “Real Deal” would remain in that role if Josh Gordon was ready to go, even if he hasn’t played a game of organized NFL football since January of 2019.

Like Watkins, Gordon measures in at 6-foot-3 and has the sort of height-weight-speed needed to be a legitimate challenger on the outside X receiver spot. He can be a threat to fight for 50-50 balls against smaller cornerbacks, run comeback routes that capitalize on his body control, and even just haul you-know-what down the field on the occasional go route. With Hardman and Hill both deployable from either the slot or on the outside, having a second viable outside option like Gordon would allow Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy even more flexibility to move his receivers around formations and attack the Eagles where they are least able to protect themselves: the middle of the field.

While Avonte Maddox has proven himself an excellent option in the slot, having to take on both Hardman and Hill in the slot would present the Eagles with a pretty challenging task, as their second-string nickel cornerback/primary dime cornerback Josiah Scott has just been activated off of IR and their safety depth chart is even more of a question mark.

Granted, I would imagine the Chiefs will still attack the middle of the defense with frequency in Week 4, as the Eagles’ linebacking corps remains one of their biggest issues in coverage, but having to worry about two speedy slot receivers at the same time is a whole lot harder than one.

Will the Philadelphia Eagles still have trouble shutting down the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 4? Oh yeah, most definitely. The team’s offensive attack remains one of the best in the NFL, and having a pair of receivers in Mecole Hardman and Tyreek Hill, who pretty evenly rotate between the slot and the outside, will make Jonathan Gannon’s afternoon pretty darn challenging. But had Josh Gordon also been active too, especially in his first game of NFL action in over two years, that challenge would grow considerably and present the Philadelphia Eagles with arguably their biggest challenge of the 2021 season so far. Instead, they’ll just have to face off against KC’s usual offense, which currently ranks sixth in average yards per game, fifth in passing yards, and sixth in points per game. No worries… right?