Change of scenery & luck?
9/6/2005 - When players find themselves standing in new locker rooms, let go or traded away by their old teams, they profess their love for a chance at a fresh start.
Lamar Gordon was no different yesterday, arriving in Philadelphia after the Eagles claimed the onetime Miami Dolphins running back off waivers, saying how much he was looking forward to a new chance, a new beginning.
Gordon wasn't just spouting cliches.
This is a guy in desperate need of some new mojo.
A year ago he was traded to Miami from St. Louis, the Dolphins' choice to replace the wayward Ricky Williams. He played just three games before his season ended, courtesy of a shoulder injury.
The injury healed, he returned to the Dolphins this season. Except, so did Williams, the veritable prodigal son returned to roost.
And then last month, rock bottom. In a preseason game at Jacksonville, Gordon fumbled away a potential touchdown drive. Disappointed and dejected, he returned to the parking lot at the team's training-camp hotel to retrieve his Cadillac Escalade.
The SUV was gone, stolen from the so-called secure lot. Police found the Escalade, or at least what was left of it, but Gordon's luck didn't exactly change. When the Dolphins trimmed their roster over the weekend, his name was on the cutting-room floor.
"I kept thinking it couldn't get worse," Gordon said of his string of bad luck.
Turns out, he was right. Things have gotten exceptionally better. He goes from an organization that finished 4-12 last season to one coming off a Super Bowl appearance and expected to be back there this season. He goes from the guy toting the load for a very bad team to a guy filling a role on a very good team. And most important in the matter of a day, he goes from unemployed to employed.
"It's a much better situation," Gordon said. "You come to a team that's winning a lot of games and it's fun to join something like that. I don't have to jump in and be the star. They've got things going on down here, I can just do what I can and help the team win.
"Now I can just fix my car, figure out how to get it up here and focus on football. I'll take a shuttle over here if I have to."
The Eagles hope Gordon, 25, who took part in their light practice yesterday as they ready for a season-opening Monday night date at Atlanta, will be a younger, livelier Dorsey Levens. With Correll Buckhalter out for the season, he's the guy who does the dirty work - the short-yardage situations and the grinding running late in a game, and, of course, the blocking for Brian Westbrook.
Coach Andy Reid said it would be unfair to expect Gordon, moving into a completely different offensive scheme, to come out like gangbusters on Monday night, but in the future the coach expects a lot of the 6-1, 223-pounder.
"We liked his size, he does a nice job catching the football and a good job picking up the blitz," Reid said. "Before he got to Miami, he looked like a heckuva running back. I think he got in a situation down there with some numbers. They had Ricky Williams."
All of that is fine with Gordon, who has been trying to make his way since overcoming the stigma of being a Division II, not a Division I, college star.
North Dakota State's all-time leading rusher has been aching for the right opportunity since he was drafted in 2002. Selected in the third round by St. Louis, he stared at the huge shadow of Marshall Faulk, which meant he and playing time weren't exactly on familiar terms. He enjoyed a relatively productive rookie season, filling in while Faulk was injured. He gained 228 yards on 65 carries and caught 30 passes for 278 more yards. But when Faulk returned, Gordon's time more or less ended.
Then the injury stole what might have been a great chance in Miami - an injury, by the way, Gordon said is completely in the past - and then Ricky returned, paving the way for Gordon's walking papers.
"I didn't know what was going on," Gordon said of his preseason with Miami. "I wasn't getting any reps, so I tried to ask, 'Am I playing that bad?' But nobody had any answers for me, so I just went to practice, practiced hard and played hard. If it was going to come, it was going to come."
And then the Eagles called, righting his fortunes and, finally, his fates.
Gordon is eager to get to work, to prove he is the running back the Eagles think he is, to learn the offense and to feel, once more, what it's like to play for a winner.
He knows that only hard work will keep him in town.
Nothing, after all, is secure.
Not even a secured parking lot.
