Did Melvin Gordon really turn down more money to stay in AFC West?

The chances of the Chargers bringing back Melvin Gordon were slim to none this offseason, but with Friday’s news of him signing a two-year deal with the Denver Broncos, those chances flatlined hastily.

After rejecting an offer from the Chargers last year that would have paid him roughly $10 million a year, Gordon wound-up signing just a two-year, $16 million dollar deal to stay in the AFC West. But more interestingly, Ian Rapoport made a point to note that Gordon “had a better offer from another team”, yet decided to take less money so he could play the Bolts twice a year. It apparently “appealed” to him.

So based off those statements, it seems like Gordon’s likely fostering some disdain for the Chargers, even though he himself proved to the world he wasn’t worth the money he was asking before falling flat in his return to the team last season.

Former players feeling spurned isn’t an unusual thing. Many players want to stay with their longtime teams and still earn the money they feel they deserve, but it just doesn’t always happen that way. However, soon after the initial news of his signing broke, some interesting tweets between Adam Schefter and local Denver sports reporter Mike Klis shed some light on a sketchy situation.

Klis echoed Rapoport’s report that Gordon had other suitors, stating that the Bills offered him “a little more” than the Broncos. But according to Adam Schefter, this wasn’t the case. Schefter went out of his way to clear the air surrounding Gordon’s signing, making it clear that the Bills did not offer Gordon at all.

Of course, to save face, Klis responded that he was told otherwise, but Schefter wasn’t having it.

So this series of tweets got the people talking and wondering if Gordon and his agent, Damarius Bilbo, were maybe blowing some smoke up people’s behinds in order to make it seem like Gordon had a wider array of potential suitors than he really did. Of course, this wouldn’t be surprising in the least. There’s no way Gordon went through the last calendar without feeling some major self-esteem issues regarding his apparent value in the NFL. While I’m sure he had more than one team looking to sign him, there’s almost no way a team was going to sign him for any more than $8 million. That’s roughly what Devonta Freeman got from Atlanta several years ago and he’s already been released due to his underwhelming performance and health issues.

Things will certainly interesting when the Chargers square-off against the Broncos for the first time in 2020. You can already see the all the media outlets running with the “Gordon v. Ekeler” theme and doing their part in hyping up the divisional match-up.

Personally, I can’t wait to finally see if Gordon was actually being held back by the Chargers or if the Chargers were being held back by Melvin Gordon. We shall see!