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(Not really a) Gase hit piece


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so now costello is getting on the maneesh/gase bandwagon.  Gase embattled?  he's been there for a single season and got the team to 7 wins after losing about half the season due to injuries and just getting everyone on the same page.  the 6-2 finish portends a better season this year, assuming the new free agents and draft picks can come in and play as a team.  playoffs may still be a long shot but they should be a heck of a lot closer than they have over the past 9 seasons.  and they are building a team that will have continued good success.

Jets’ Sam Darnold will make or break embattled Adam Gase

BRIAN COSTELLO

The NFL schedule will be released this week. While it feels like optimistic thinking to believe the NFL season will start on time, that won’t stop us from analyzing every aspect of the slate.

For the Jets, there will be plenty of questions about the 2020 season. Will the Jamal Adams contract situation be resolved by then? How much did general manager Joe Douglas improve the offensive line? Can Le’Veon Bell have a better second season with the Jets than his first?

Judging from my email and questions I have gotten from Jets fans, a big one on their minds is: How many games does Adam Gase need to win to remain as head coach in 2021? It is no secret Gase is as popular as a colonoscopy with a large segment of Jets fans. An 0-2 start this year will have fans calling for his head.

Gase’s first season as head coach is not simple to evaluate. It has to be divided into two categories. As the leader of the football team, Gase managed to pull his team out of a 1-7 hole and keep the locker room from fracturing. The Jets went 6-2 in the second half of the season and ended up with more wins than the team had in four years.

Is anyone throwing a parade for that performance? No. But it also should not just be dismissed. Jets fans have seen plenty of seasons spiral out of control after a few losses. That did not happen in 2019.

The other half of the equation was not as pretty for Gase. He was hired partially because of his background as an offensive coach. It was the first time the Jets hired someone who had been primarily an offensive coach to be the head man since Rich Kotite in 1995.

Gase’s offense was putrid in his first year. The unit ranked dead last overall and at or near the bottom in plenty of categories. It was not all his fault. The offensive line was terrible and there were costly injuries to Chris Herndon and Quincy Enunwa, among others. But it was on Gase to find answers to the offense’s problems and he largely could not in 2019.

That brings us to this year and the question of how many games it will take to keep his job.

I think the question is the wrong one when it comes to Gase’s job security. The right one is: What does Sam Darnold have to show to save Gase’s job?

This year is going to be all about how much Gase can get out of the third-year quarterback. It is their second season together and the 22-year-old needs to show marked improvement for CEO Christopher Johnson to stand by Gase in 2021.

That may mean the Jets go 7-9 again but Darnold is showing more consistency and looks like the elite player the Jets believe they drafted in 2018.

Setting win totals or playoff mandates is not smart. Think about this: The Jets went 9-7 both in 2008 and 2009. The 9-7 record in 2008 got Eric Mangini fired. The 9-7 record in 2009 got Rex Ryan a contract extension. The 2008 Jets collapsed. The 2009 Jets caught fire and made it to the AFC Championship game.

Every season tells a story. We need to see what the 2020 story is before determining whether Gase should be back in 2021.

Darnold made some positive strides last year after returning from his three-game absence with mono. He went 7-6 as the starter and saw an uptick in his completions, attempts, completion percentage, yards, touchdowns and QB rating while his interceptions went down.

Now, he needs those 19 touchdown passes to get closer to 30, the 13 interceptions to get closer to five, the 3,024 yards to get closer to 4,000 and the 61.9 completion percentage to get closer to 70.unmiss-sound-button-muted-e74d67a0c85c3548f07d7564782a269c.svg

If Darnold does that, the wins will come and Gase gets the most out of his quarterback this fall, no one will be asking about his job come winter.

 

Gase has talked about Darnold taking ahold of the offense in Year 2 and becoming an extension of the coaching staff. Gase is excited about seeing Darnold play again.

“We’ve had some really good meetings,” Gase said on The Post’s “Gang’s All Here” podcast. “The way he’s talking through football situations, that’s what makes this a tougher time for us because I just want to get on the field when I hear him talking like this.”

Darnold should benefit from Year 2 in Gase’s system. But Gase also must take what he’s learned about his quarterback in Year 1 and make his offense fit Darnold in Year 2.

If Gase can get the most out of his quarterback this fall, no one will be asking about his job come winter.

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Reasonable take all round.

Gase was trash last season and with Miami before that. If he doesn't improve get him the f*ck out of here.

The New England game is probably as badly a coached game you're ever likely to see. Beaten by the same f*cking blitz over and over. No preparation. No adjustments. Just falling into the same old traps. Belichick brutally exposed him and Darnold to boot.

He can be thankful for Greg Williams for saving his job. I suspect he'll be having his job soon enough.

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25 minutes ago, rangerous said:

Gase’s first season as head coach is not simple to evaluate. It has to be divided into two categories. As the leader of the football team, Gase managed to pull his team out of a 1-7 hole and keep the locker room from fracturing. The Jets went 6-2 in the second half of the season and ended up with more wins than the team had in four years.

How is this a hit piece exactly?  

Gives him a lot of credit here and then says it shouldn't get him a parade.  

And needs for the offense, specifically Darnold needs to improve

Seems fair to me

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13 minutes ago, JetsFanatic said:

I read it, I honestly didn't think it was a hit piece.

Agreed. And I should add that regardless of what some fans think, they do not determine a head coach's tenure. Gase needs to show that he can get the offense to perform even at middling league level or he is in trouble. And that's fair, as far as I'm concerned. If he can't, they should move on or get an offensive coordinator who can.

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It’s fair, imo. It also underscores how Darnold is really the only thing that matters on this franchise and it would appear as though Gase and Douglas know it. Their project is to get him to play well, and that’s the standard they’ll be judged by

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This wasn’t a hit piece. Everything in that article is pretty fair. It’s literally the same debate we are having in the what does a Darnold breakout year look like. This year is about Darnold and Gase. The pieces around him are good enough for him to show what he can do. Can they be better? Sure. But I don’t see anything that’ll hold him back. 

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36 minutes ago, Jet Nut said:

How is this a hit piece exactly?  

Gives him a lot of credit here and then says it shouldn't get him a parade.  

And needs for the offense, specifically Darnold needs to improve

Seems fair to me

it's the term embattled.  imo after last season gase is not embattled.

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39 minutes ago, SAR I said:

“Embattled”?  He should have won coach of the year after all he and the team went through last year. 

SAR I

Agree. Gase the HC had a very good year. The team held it together. Adams could have dogged it after the trade stuff. Bell could have become disgruntled. Just so many things could have gone wrong that didn’t.

Gase the OC had a poor year. 2020 is all about the offense. Every other part of the team has shown to be good. Leadership from the FO, Defense, and Special Teams. 

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53 minutes ago, GreenFish said:

Agree. Gase the HC had a very good year. The team held it together. Adams could have dogged it after the trade stuff. Bell could have become disgruntled. Just so many things could have gone wrong that didn’t.

Yup.  It truly was one of the best head coaching performances in team history.  So much adversity, such a hard assignment, such a hard city, Adam did good.

54 minutes ago, GreenFish said:

Gase the OC had a poor year. 2020 is all about the offense. Every other part of the team has shown to be good. Leadership from the FO, Defense, and Special Teams. 

Gase is not our OC.  Dowell Loggains gets an ultimatum this season.

SAR I

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Darnold will have an uptick in production this year as long as he puts in the work, he has all the tools.  Gase says this all the time, it really rings true and is ultimately why you see so many quarterbacks make jumps,  being in a system for a second consecutive year makes a WORLDDDD of difference in being able to perform. 

Anyone that has played this sport at any level knows that your first year you start to hit your stride half way through the season since that is when you get enough reps usually to start putting what you're studying into effect.  By year 2 and 3 you're working on mastery and just playing without thinking because you know it inside and out.  We as fans take this for granted since these are professionals and expect the learning curve to be significantly less.  The fact is these are 20-22 year old kids coming into the league and are not only trying to process a system that is often time far more complex than anything they have run before, but also having to adjust the speed of the game.  It's a daunting task to say the least. 

I think what your'e seeing from Darnold so far over two seasons is that he has taken his lumps in the first half of the season (both in new offenses) and then started to play better in the second half as he's gotten more comfortable with the system.  Now his progress has ultimately been delayed by injuries both times which takes away from the physical reps that are vitally important to player development. If he is able to stay healthy this season, and the offense as a whole stays relatively healthy, you will see a better Darnold in the beginning part of the season (better than usual) and hopefully upward trending progress as the season progresses.  

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