Saying the club "probably won't win the flag this year" and that it may not make finals, Gordon conceded the Dogs had made mistakes in the past.
"Some games we might struggle to score freely. We've made some mistakes along the way, and we're going to make some more," Gordon said at Tuesday night's season launch.
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"We are rebuilding. We probably won't win the flag this year. There's even the prospect that we won't play off. We've come off a tough year, and we'll face more challenges this year, and in the future.
"Managing the balancing act between hope and expectation and reality is not always easy."
The Bulldogs won just five games in 2012 and Gordon said perseverance is required of the club's fans.
"We will continue to preach the virtues of patience to the football community, whilst inside the club don't believe for one minute that we are patient. We are not. We are impatient," he said.
"We are constantly dissatisfied. We are constantly looking for another one percent edge in everything we do."
Gordon admitted the club will often go into games as the underdog, but insists that won't affect team morale.
"We'll go into each game saying and believing that, ‘yes, we are going to win', even if it looks unlikely and even if it is unlikely," he said.
"At the same time, we want to be able to enjoy the wins … without having someone telling us 'keep a lid on it'.
"And when we lose games, even if we lose sometimes by a substantial margin, and we sometimes will, I want our people … to look the press and the cameras in the eye and say, 'we weren't good enough today, we're fighting on, we may not be quite good enough yet [but] we're going to get there', without them being expected to look like there's been a death in the family."
Jacqui Reed is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow her @JacquiReedAFL
