Adam Gase spent too much time looking at his playing pages at games, and not enough time coaching … [+]
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To better understand Adam Gase’s failure, it’s helpful to take a look at a major shortcoming of the last coach that led the New York Jets to the playoffs.
After the Jets drafted Geno Smith with the first selection in the second round of the 2013 NFL draft, they decided to compete with owner Mark Sanchez for the job of starting quarterback.
In the preseason opening at Detroit, coach Rex then watched Ryan in horror as Sanchez threw a pick-six to defensive lineman Ziggy Ansah on a screen pass. Well, he was really just looking at the tail end of the play, because his back was turned until he heard the roar of the Ford Field crowd.
That was because the defensive Ryan was working on his particular thing at the time, and was not paying attention to what was happening with the offense. Perhaps that’s why, when owner Woody Johnson hired Ryan’s replacement, Todd Bowles in 2015, Johnson said Bowles had the ability to track 30,000 feet on offense, defense and special teams, the all of those areas, and how they interact. . ”
But that is not what happened. Although Bowles did not call the defensive plays, he focused largely on that side of the ball, and allowed his offensive coordinators to handle the other side of the scrimmage line.
His successor, Adam Gase, has been even worse in that aspect of coaching, with his laminated playing page often looking like he’s tied to his face at games. But that error rule (a shock to Jets fans) is expected to end in a matter of hours, win or lose, following the Jets game at New England today.
But it’s worth remembering both Ryan, and Jets predecessor Eric Mangini. It is clear that the Johnson brothers, Christopher and Woody, who own the Jets, did not closely follow the career arc of these two men once Woody Johnson removed them from their Jets duties.
Each was immediately hired by another team – Buffalo in Ryan’s case, Cleveland in Mangini’s case. And each lasted only two seasons in the new gig before it was fired. Ryan went 15-16 to the Bills before being caught with one game left in the 2016 campaign, and Mangini was 10-22 to the long-suffering Browns.
The problem for both is that they have not made any changes to their approaches. Ryan went along with the same defensive approach first on the sidelines, and his same bomb approach in interviews and off the field, going as far as buying a pickup truck and painting it. e with the logo and colors of the Bills.
As for Mangini, he brought the same brand of mystery and paranoia inspired by Bill Belichick to Cleveland that he had used with New York. Halfway through his first season there, the Browns and his teamwork director Erin O’Brien quietly parted ways. When O’Brien was with the Jets, some players thought she was there to betray them and account for Mangini, according to a source.
(On the other hand, the weird thing about this is that Mangini has since proven to be not only a visual television reporter, but very engaging and funny. His career is in coaching. heads remain a mystery.)
Not to play an amateur psychologist, but the reasons for such behavior in the next job are obvious. In any career path, you can be hired immediately after being hired as proof that it was not your fault, but the fault of the people you burned. And much like Ryan and Mangini, Adam Gase never changed his ways.
He still runs the same offense that worked for the Peyton Manning passer in 3013-14, but it’s not quite appropriate for the more mobile Sam Darnold, and it’s not quite appropriate against NFL defenders who have seen that crime before. He also focuses on just one side of the ball, completely taking out the defense, just as he did when he coached Miami from 2016-18. But it won’t do that much longer.
The Jets cannot make this mistake in the next hire. The new head coach needs to be aware of all stages of the job. It will be up to general manager Joe Douglas, if he gets power from acting owner Christopher Johnson, to make sure they get a coach who is not buried in his playoff pages on Sunday.
On that August night of 2013, Rex Ryan was not watching. But the Jets ’hierarchy needs to have a clear vision for once.