Melvin Gordon plans to report around Weeks 6-8

[Bolt]

Getty Images

Neither Melvin Gordon nor the Chargers is planning to budge in their contract impasse, and so Gordon won’t show up any time soon.

Gordon’s current plan is to show up some time around Weeks 6-8, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network.

As we’ve previously noted, Gordon can’t sit out the entire year if he wants to make any progress toward a new contract. If he were to do that, his 2019 salary of $5.6 million would simply become a 2020 salary of $5.6 million and he’d be right back where he started.

So Gordon needs to show up by the Tuesday after Week 10 to get credited for the fifth and final season of his contract. It appears he’ll show up a little sooner than that, perhaps because he doesn’t want the Chargers to use a roster exemption for him when he first returns and then argue that he wasn’t on the roster long enough to get credit for a season.

There’s still the option for the Chargers to trade Gordon, if he can find a team willing to pay him what he wants, and the team can find a trading partner. But it appears more likely that Gordon will stay with the Chargers, likely reporting some time in October.