Here's why the person who knows Melvin Gordon best believes he's primed for a huge year

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Sometimes, your biggest supporter can offer the most insightful — and blunt — critiques. Especially when it’s your mother, who has seen every step of your journey and knows you better than you might know yourself.

That’s what Broncos running back Melvin Gordon has in his mother, Carmen. She flew to Denver last week to help her son run his football camp at Englewood High School. She didn’t miss a game he played until COVID-19 resulted in limited attendance — or, for eight games last year, no spectators at all.

“Silly COVID messed up that little streak she had going on for my whole life,” Melvin Gordon said. “Every game she’s been to, she’s never missed a game that she was able to go to.

Carmen Gordon still made it to all but six games last year, she noted. But for the six games she could only watch on television, her keen insight into her son’s play increased.

“It’s just that I can critique him better when I’m sitting at home than when I’m sitting in the stands,” she said. “So, this year was the first time I kind of watched him at home on TV, so I could see what he was doing and what he was not doing, believe it or not.”

Her take on her son’s work to start the 2020 season might have matched that of many fans watching at home.

“I told him, ‘You look slow. You need to work on that in the offseason. When you come out of that hole, you’re a little slow,’” she said.

He looked better down the stretch. In the final five weeks of the 2020 season, Gordon was fifth in the league in rushing yardage (432), and did so averaging 5.33 yards per carry.

Part of that, Carmen Gordon said, was because her son was able to start getting back to a normal workout routine that got waylaid in the spring and summer last year at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“He’s always been a workaholic. He takes this game serious,” she said. “He puts a lot of work in. That’s not fate. He grinds.”

And with something approaching a normal offseason, she expects big things.

“He’s been working. So I’m expecting him to come out shooting,” she said.

Having a few fans on hand will also help. After all, for Melvin Gordon, that was part of the reason why he signed with the Broncos after five seasons in the Chargers — years in which he saw one of his home games turned into effectively a road trip because of thousands of orange-clad supporters invading the stadiums in San Diego and Carson, Calif.

“It’s going to be exciting man, because the biggest thing was playing in front of this Denver crowd. I wanted to experience it,” he said. “I know the lights, it ups when people play, and I love playing with a big crowd, because that kind of gets you going a bit, gives you an extra boost.”

A boost that Mama Gordon believes will result in perhaps her son’s best season as a pro.

“I’m expecting Pro Bowl and some more mess this year, because he’s really been working hard,” she said.

One shouldn’t dismiss her predictions. After all, mothers usually know best.