Browns head coach Hue Jackson acted like it was one of those “well-duh” or “no-kidding” questions when it was posed to him during his press conference on Thursday.

“Are you comfortable saying that Josh Gordon will start?” Jackson was asked about the wide receiver getting the nod for Sunday’s road game against the rejuvenated Los Angeles Chargers.

“Am I comfortable saying that?” he said rhetorically with a laugh. “Heck, yeah. Are you kidding me? Yeah, he is going to start – right away.”

He then added, “You have to play your good players, right? For you guys to ask me now, I’m kind of surprised you would ask. Yeah, he is going to start.”

It would be several hours before the Browns announced that they had even activated Gordon, so was it a stretch for someone to question Jackson about starting him? I think not.

In fact, it’s the question – or, as it were, the follow-up questions – that Jackson should have been asked. It’s quite a leap to go from being out of football after having been suspended multiple times, to only recently being allowed to return to the Browns. Then to up and start Gordon immediately – at the first opportunity Jackson had to do so — is not just another regular leap, but rather a quantum one.

Let’s cut to the chase: Should Jackson have started Gordon?

As Jackson said, a coach certainly does have to play his best players. He would be foolish not to do so, wouldn’t he?

Yes, in almost every other instance, he would, but perhaps not in this instance. The Browns don’t have much talent at wide receiver. They don’t have anyone even close to what Gordon is. So he will help, without a  doubt.

But what message does this say to other players, all of whom have had to work hard and go through a long process to get to this point, that someone else can walk in off the street and be fast-forwarded into the starting lineup in a veritable blink of an eye?

I don’t think it’s a good one.

It would have been better for Jackson to keep Gordon out of the starting lineup, but to insert him early and l t him play a lot, if not the rest of the game. That would have made perfect sense.

For Hue Jackson to think that questioning his logic on this matter is laughable, is … well, laughable in itself.