Melvin Gordon Saga: Ill-advised holdout likely to extend into regular season

It is looking more and more as though Los Angeles Chargers running back Melvin Gordon is not going to let his complete absence of leverage stop him from sitting out regular season games in pursuit of a salary cap-crippling contract extension.

NFL Networks’ Ian Rapoport reports that the expectation is for the former Wisconsin Badger to extend his holdout into the regular season meaning that he will almost certainly not be back in time for game 1 against the Indianapolis Colts.

Gordon is under contract for 2019 with a cap hit of $5.6 million which already makes him one of the highest paid players in the NFL at his position. There have been reports that the Chargers have offered him a multi-year deal with an average annual value hovering around $10 million which is fair to the player while also representing an unwise investment for the team. That, however, was not seen as sufficient by the delusional Gordon and he continues wait on a call from the team to improve on it.

This has both parties at an impasse because the Chargers front office is not stupid and they realize they have far more important players coming due for extensions in the very near future and they cannot afford to have too much cap space tied up in a player that head coach Anthony Lynn can easily replace with the likes of Austin Ekeler and Justin Jackson. So, for now, we wait for Gordon to blink.