The Patriots sound pretty optimistic about Josh Gordon’s progress

The Patriots are 1-2, Tom Brady is only averaging 215 yards a game, and Dunkin’ Donuts isn’t even going to be Dunkin’ Donuts anymore. Your move, Dippin’ Donuts. Life is weird.

That said, with pretty much everyone looking forward to Julian Edelman’s return as a Red Bull on a Sunday morning after staying out till sunrise, if what the Patriots are saying about Josh Gordon’s progress is legit, they might be getting a shot in the arm even sooner than that.

Of course, Belichick had to remind everyone that after two thorough ass-kickings in a row, everybody needs to get their...stuff together, but it sounds like Bill, Josh, and Brady are liking what they’re seeing from Gordon so far.

From NESN:

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was asked Monday afternoon on WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni & Fauria” radio program if he was worried about Gordon’s consistency, availability, or ability to stay interested after his first week with the team.

“There certainly hasn’t been much evidence of that so far,” Belichick responded. “We’ll see, I don’t know. I’m worried about everybody’s consistency right now. As a team, we all have a long way to go.”

Belichick said Friday that Gordon has “worked hard” and “picked up a lot.”

And here’s Josh McDaniels talking about Josh hitting the ground running and trying to pick up as much as he can, since Gordon’s obviously more or less doing the classic college kid thing where we crammed for 10 straight hours before a final instead of just paying attention all semester:

“Really been eager to get in there and learn everything we’re doing and you know, just try to acclimate himself to what the program is,” McDaniels said Monday on a conference call. “I think he’s learning. Look, it’s not easy to come in in the middle of the week and try to pick everything up immediately, guys coming from different systems. But he’s doing a really good job of working hard at that and trying to get himself caught up so that he knows what to do when he’s out there and can do it at a dependable level. I think he’s really doing a good job of that, and then we’ll see as he progresses this week, if he gets any closer to being able to be active.

“… And I’m not worried at all about Josh’s ability to pick up our system. He’s already demonstrated an ability to do that.”

We’ve mentioned it before, but it is worth noting that Gordon had five different offensive coordinators and I’m too lazy to count how many different quarterbacks in his time in the Factory of Sadness, so it’s not like this is Reggie Wayne trying to learn the Pats offense after doing the basically the same thing for a decade with Peyton.

Meanwhile, Brady sounds, dare we say, cautiously optimistic?

“He’s working to learn,” Brady said. “He’s working to understand how we do things. Whenever he’s back healthy and out there and that’s when we really get to work on seeing what we’re all capable of when we’re out there.”

With a couple possible shootouts coming up fast against Patrick Mahomes and A-A-Ron Rodgers, not to mention a Miami Dolphins team this week that’s somehow 3-0 despite one of the strangest offseasons ever, we’d better hope Gordon can chip in with something, cause the sledding definitely doesn’t get any easier from here on out.

Or, if you want to roll with our Sunday morning after painting the town analogy again, we’re at the point now with this offense like when someone asks on the group text:

“Want to go get some food?”

“Oh my god yes”

“Where?”

“I DON’T CARE LITERALLY ANYWHERE IS FINE JUST PUT FOOD IN MY BELLY NOW PLZ”