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Adam Gase is under a lot of heat.
And who knows what will happen after the season.
People put his coaching of Sam Darnold at the top of the list of problems.
Has he done a great job with Darnold? No. But you have a quarterback who struggles reading defenses, and tends to lock in on his first read, the play-callers options are limited, no matter who it is.
His last college game, a 24-7 loss to Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl, was perhaps a harbinger.
But I have plenty of other things to get into here in terms of areas of concern with the coach.
First of all, he must improve his game day player personnel decisions, and I’m not even talking about roster decisions, which he doesn’t have final say; I’m talking in-game.
A perfect example was that fourth-and-one call we discussed yesterday, giving the ball to Josh Adams instead of Frank Gore, which made no sense. Some would argue Gore ran the previous last three plays, but Adams, who was rusty at the time after not playing, wasn’t the guy for that fourth-and-one. As I mentioned, he’s a tall (6-2), long-legged back who’s kind of lean build. So he needs to gather to get to full speed, and he’s not built to break a ton of tackles between tackles, and he is high cut, and on fourth-and-one, you’re better off with a 5-8 power back like Gore, who not only breaks a ton of tackles, but can get under the pad level of tall defensive linemen.
Gase refused to call deep passes to wide receivers yesterday, down big, after Breshad Perriman got hurt. Some would tell you that with Perriman out, he had not speed receivers, but Josh Malone ran 4.4 when he come out of Tennessee, so that isn’t accurate. You need to know your players a little better.
And the lack of tight end usage so far is bizarre. They entered the season with that being a position strength and those guys are now like Maytag Repairmen.
And then there were the mind-boggling decisions to allow Gregg Williams to start Alex Ogletree at ILB, which was a disaster. Harvey Langi filled in the Week 1 and did a solid job, and Frankie Luvu was an inside linebacker in college. Both Langi and Luvu, who were making plays all over the field in Buffalo, but went into the Witness Protection Program against San Francisco. That was perplexing. They are both big, fast, athletic playmakers, something the Jets need more of. Some will say Williams decides who plays on defense. Well that’s a problem in itself, because a head coach shouldn’t farm out one side of the ball. You need to be the head coach of the entire team. Williams has made some poor personnel decisions in terms of who’s playing, and the head coach needs to check him on that, and not have a laissez-faire attitude about one side of the ball.
Another issues with Gase is he tends to use injuries as a crutch, and now he has the owner buying into that.
“If we stay healthy, I think we’ll be in the right spot at the end of the year,” Gase said at the 2019 NFL League Meeting. “If we lost a bunch of really good players, our probability goes down.”
And Christopher Johnson said last week, when asked if the team has enough talent to win: “We have to stay healthy. We have to stay healthy. But we have a roster we can win with, if we stay healthy.”
No, you need to win even if you don’t stay healthy, like the 49ers yesterday, and like their next opponent, the Colts, who have already lost Marlon Mack, Malik Hooker and Parris Campbell.
As Tony Dungy always said, “No excuses, no explanations.”
Bill Belichick never plays up injuries as a problem, even if they are. It’s bad for the football culture.
Don’t use injuries as a crutch. All teams have them.
Ask Kyle Shanahan who kicked the Jets butts on Sunday with a MASH unit.
September 21, 2020
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