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It’s over.
“This evening, I informed Adam Gase he will no longer serve as the head coach of the Jets,” Christopher Johnson said in a statement on Sunday evening.
Gase finished with a 9-23 record in two years as Jets coach.
Gase was hired in January 2019, during a terribly flawed interview process.
First of all, there was too much of a focus on Sam Darnold during the interview process. You don’t hire a coach with one player in mind. You hire a coach who will do a great job leading all 53 men. You don’t hire a coach to take Darnold to the next level. You hire a great head coach and let him hire a really good really good staff, including a skillful quarterback coach to work with the signal-caller.
And clearly hiring a coach to take Darnold to the next level was a bad idea, and it didn’t work. He showed no improvement during his two years under Gase.
But as I’ve pointed out on many occasions, Darnold not progressing. for the most part, isn’t Gase’s fault. Darnold doesn’t read defenses well, doesn’t go through his progressions well, and there isn’t much Gase can do about that, He can go on the field during plays and force Sam to turn his head.
The other messed up part of the interview process that landed Gase the job was Mike Maccagnan telling candidates that they would have to hire Gregg Williams as defensive coordinator. What was up with that? Christopher Johnson should have told Maccagnan to knock it off.
Forcing the new coach to hire Williams made Baylor Matt Rhule drop out of contention from the job. He’s now the coach of the Carolina Panthers.
Gase was more than happy to take the four-year deal for $20 million, even if he had to take Williams. He really had no other offers to be a head coach, and would be set for life financially.
The Jets had Maccagnan in the interviews because they wanted to have a football guy in the process, but they clearly they had the wrong guy in the room.
This time around, they seem to have the right guy in the room – Joe Douglas. He needs to make the decision, not business people.
Not only does he know a lot more coaches than Maccagnan does, on both the college and pro level, but he’s not going to tell candidates who to hire on their staff.
The Jets desperately need a an alpha dog who commands the room. The Jets desperately need a culture builder. They don’t need a hot coordinator who is going to be obsessed with one side of the ball. If you don’t learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it.
You keep hearing the name Dan Mullen. That is right along the lines of what they need. Matt Campbell, Dan Mullen, Jim Harbaugh, David Shaw, somebody like that.
They need somebody who has already proven they can build a program, build a culture, even if it was in college.
No more experiments with hot coordinators.
And don’t hire a coach with one player in mind.
“It is clear the best decision for the Jets is to move in a different direction,” Johnson said.
And it’s best decision to hire a coach who knows how to build a culture.
“Culture eats strategy for lunch,” said Peter Drucker.
Culture, culture, culture.
January 3, 2021
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