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Lichtenstein: Jets Coach Adam Gase Was More Conservative Than Todd Bowles Last Season

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BROOKLYN JET

BROOKLYN JET

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STEVE LICHTENSTEIN
JUNE 28, 2019 - 8:19 PM
 
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For years, Jets fans bemoaned their team’s ultra-conservative bent from all their defensive-oriented head coaches, most recently Rex Ryan and Todd Bowles. Playing “not-to-lose” typically resulted in the opposite of the intended effect, with the limited exception of Gang Green’s back-to-back AFC Championship seasons in 2009-10. Those coaches “trusted their defenses” despite all the historical analytics that proved they were lowering their chances of winning by doing so.    

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We won’t know until real games are played how aggressive new Jets head coach Adam Gase intends to be. However, thanks to the internet, we can gather information from his previous engagement to find clues about his tendencies. Gase coached the Dolphins the past three seasons and served as offensive coordinator for the Bears in 2015. He also coordinated the Broncos’ attack for two seasons, but when Peyton Manning is your quarterback, I’m not sure how much actual play-calling responsibility the coordinator has.

Similarly, there clearly is a trust factor between the coach and the quarterback, and a case can be made that Gase was wise not to have full confidence in Ryan Tannehill and Brock Osweiler in Miami last season. He clearly was more comfortable with Jay Cutler behind center when Tannehill sat out the entire 2017 season with a knee injury. Cutler worked with Gase in Chicago. 

The Dolphins ran on about 53% of their first-and-tens in 2016 and 2018, and a league-low 44% in 2017, per sharpfootballstats.com. The league average last season was 50%. Miami also dialed back on second-and-long, presumed to be a passing down by most NFL teams. Instead, the Dolphins ran on 43.3% of second downs of at least seven yards last season, almost 10% more than the league average. In total, the Dolphins went run-run-pass on 18% of their series last season, which was the NFL’s seventh-most frequent, per fivethirtyeight.com. They made a first down on a league-low 22.6% of those sequences. 

 

Jets coach Adam Gase Danielle Parhizkaran/NorthJersey.com
 

 

Even the Jets were more aggressive with rookie quarterback Sam Darnold under center last season. Under catatonic coach Todd Bowles, they went run-run-pass on 13% of series. They threw on 51% of first-and-10s and 61% of second downs when needing at least seven yards. Granted, those percentages dropped to 45.6% and 55.6% when you took away the situations where the Jets trailed by more than one score. Even factoring those in, however, the Dolphins were still more conservative.

In his introduction to the Jets’ media in January, Gase curiously provided a lame excuse for Miami’s puny scoring output during his tenure, claiming the offense’s primary mission was to avoid turnovers. Meanwhile, their 23 giveaways last season tied for the 12th-most in the league.

The other area I looked at was how Gase viewed fourth downs. In his first season as head coach, the Dolphins went for it just four times, converting none. The second-fewest teams had nine. The NFL average that year was about 15 and has been rising slowly since.

Again, the 2017 season proved to be an outlier because of Gase’s faith (however blind) in Cutler. Miami went 7-for-24 on fourth downs, which was both the third-most attempts and the fourth-worst conversion percentage in the league.

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With the Tannehill/Osweiler duo last season, the Dolphins turtled more often, attempting 13 fourth-down conversions, including one on a fake punt, which tied for the fifth-fewest in the league. Five of the 13 attempts were at the tail end of blowout losses. The Jets, in comparison, were tied for the third-most fourth-down attempts (22), converting 50%.

Now, not all fourth-down situations are created equally. No coach rolls the dice on fourth-and-long or when they’re pinned in their own territory, except maybe when the game has already been decided. So I went back through last season’s play charts to determine how many opportunities Gase could have gone for it but instead kicked. 

I zeroed in on fourth downs with three-or-fewer yards to go from opponent's territories or very close to midfield, areas where taking chances has been proven by analytics to pay off. Again, I discounted situations where it didn’t take courage for Gase to go for first downs, such as when he was trailing big late. Also, for example, he wasn’t going for a fourth-and-one in Bears territory in overtime—the Dolphins simply kicked the game-winning field goal in Week 6.

It turns out there were other situations where his decisions to kick didn’t come back to bite him, including the punt from his own 40-yard line with 4:34 left versus New England when trailing 30-28. Normally, a team shouldn’t expect to get the ball back from Tom Brady. It turned out the Dolphins did get one final play—the miracle hook-and-ladder for the game-winning touchdown. Gase also punted on a fourth-and-two from the Bengals 42 with 1:21 remaining in the first half in Week 5 but was bailed out when the Dolphins ran the subsequent Cincinnati punt back for a touchdown. 

However, I counted only five other times where Gase could have been second-guessed for kicking, twice in a Week 8 loss to Houston where he opted for 40-yard field goals on fourth-and-shorts. Meanwhile, Jets fans might remember (or have done their best to forget) the following week’s game where Gase twice converted fourth downs during a drive before halftime of an ugly 13-6 Dolphins victory. He went 1-for-3 on other similar attempts on fourth downs during the course of the season.

What does this all mean for the Jets? It seems that this is one of many reasons why training camp will be a crucial time. Darnold, entering his second season, will be tasked with mastering a brand-new system. Not just the verbiage, but protections and route trees. Gase may have been hired under the presumption that he has been a “quarterback whisperer,” but his track record suggests that not every QB has been able to hear him. Will Gase trust Darnold enough by the season opener to allow him to be unleashed?

If not, we could be watching a coach who was more conservative than Todd Bowles.

For a FAN’s perspective of the Nets, Devils and Jets, follow Steve on Twitter @SteveLichtenst1.

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rangerous

rangerous

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18 minutes ago, nico002 said:

It’s not about not being aggressive it’s about being predictable and sh*tty

yep.  i'm not so sure i know what they mean by being an agressive coach.  look at the rams last season.  they relied quite a bit on mcgahee to run the ball.  i think their run/pass ratio was nearly even.  to me it's all about executing the plays that have been drawn up even if it's a run or pass play.  and it's also all about running plays that the other team is weak defending or isn't ready for.

i think what i want to see from gase is a coach who knows how to keep the pressure on the other team even with a lead.  i don't want to see a whole lot of prevent defense or running out the clock ball control unless the clock will run way down before the other team gets the ball or time runs out.

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slats

slats

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Not a lot of positive vibes there, lol. 

Fish had better RBs and worse QBs, although Gase had Tannehill throwing TDs on over 6% of his passes. The Jets lost both Powell and Crowell, and McGuire and Cannon only averaged 3.0 ypc. Meanwhile, Gase had Gore and Drake both averaging over 4.5 ypc. 

Will see what he chooses to do here. I suspect he'll be leaning on Darnold. That's his bread & butter. 

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Grandy

Grandy

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I don't really care about the gameplan being conservative as long as we are completing passes, making gains, and scoring TD's. It's all about competence. However I don't worry about our offense being too conservative as Darnold and his skill set are easily a huge upgrade over Tannehill and company. Same with Le'Veon Bell vs Frank Gore. Darnold has also said multiple times how the offense he is learning is aggressive and he's ready to take deep shots. 

However if we do opt for the more conservative route. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. Guys like Brady and Brees don't make huge throws and rely on a primarily dink and dunk offense. However they're still putting up great numbers and leading top offenses. Competence is key.

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Jetsfan80

Jetsfan80

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Darnold will be the 2nd best QB Adam Gase has ever worked with in his entire NFL coaching career.  I can't imagine he'll adopt a conservative gameplan here.

I mean, come on.  He got fired in Miami.  I think its safe to assume he won't do a lot of things similarly here.

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Peace Frog

Peace Frog

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1 hour ago, Jet Nut said:

His QB was in the infirmary more than on the field.  He was playing most of the time with Moore, Cutler or Osweiler at QB.  

I wonder if that might have affected playcalling? 

 

9 minutes ago, Joe W. Namath said:

Gase didnt trust his qbs in miami.  And he shouldnt have cause they stunk.

What did he look like calling plays in denver?  

 

4 minutes ago, Jetsfan80 said:

Darnold will be the 2nd best QB Adam Gase has ever worked with in his entire NFL coaching career.  I can't imagine he'll adopt a conservative gameplan here.

I mean, come on.  He got fired in Miami.  I think its safe to assume he won't do a lot of things similarly here.

We are going to see a very different Andrew Gase and an incredibly efficient and dynamic Sam Darnold.

Can’t wait.  

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JoeWillieWhiteShoesHOF

JoeWillieWhiteShoesHOF

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3 hours ago, Grandy said:

I don't really care about the gameplan being conservative as long as we are completing passes, making gains, and scoring TD's. It's all about competence. However I don't worry about our offense being too conservative as Darnold and his skill set are easily a huge upgrade over Tannehill and company. Same with Le'Veon Bell vs Frank Gore. Darnold has also said multiple times how the offense he is learning is aggressive and he's ready to take deep shots. 

However if we do opt for the more conservative route. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. Guys like Brady and Brees don't make huge throws and rely on a primarily dink and dunk offense. However they're still putting up great numbers and leading top offenses. Competence is key.

Darnold is a threat ANYWHERE on the field.  I don't think that could be even said for Manning at the point of his career that Gase coached him.

Darnold will be putting up 30+ points per game...shortly, now that he has weapons.  Because that is what he has ALWAYS done....dominate.  Along with the fact that I've already seen him put the whole 2018 tattered "Offense" on his back and lead strong drives virtually all by himself.

 

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Dcat

Dcat

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4 hours ago, slats said:

Not a lot of positive vibes there, lol. 

Fish had better RBs and worse QBs, although Gase had Tannehill throwing TDs on over 6% of his passes. The Jets lost both Powell and Crowell, and McGuire and Cannon only averaged 3.0 ypc. Meanwhile, Gase had Gore and Drake both averaging over 4.5 ypc. 

Will see what he chooses to do here. I suspect he'll be leaning on Darnold. That's his bread & butter. 

Heavy load to Bell, especially if he produces.  Bell is the wild-card in all this.  Bell out there could accelerate Darnold's progress immensely.

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billo83

billo83

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23 minutes ago, Beerfish said:

Being a QB guru that was supposed to make tannehill good and failing.  He has been handed a prime franchise young Qb.  This guy better not screw it up.  I like the new gm and some of our new players.  I am still very uncertain about gase.

Some QBs just aren't good and can't be fixed. Tannehill is one of them. I'm not worried

 

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