NFL Network reports Gase will be fired following Sunday’s season finale

NEW YORK — The slow-motion firing of Adam Gase continues. The Jets are “expected to part ways” with Gase after Sunday’s game against the Patriots, according to an NFL Network report.

In other words: He’s getting fired.

The process has dragged on in a fashion befitting Gase’s plodding offenses. There were several reports that Gase was going to be fired if the Jets lost to the Browns last Sunday, but Gase somehow saved his job by winning a game that locked his employer into the No. 2 pick in next year’s draft.

Then this week, there was a sports radio report that acting Jets owner Christopher Johnson had told Gase he was going to be fired.

Gase has gone 9-22 (.290 winning percentage) in his two seasons with the Jets, only avoiding Rich Kotite territory with two improbably hot Decembers. Kotite (4-28, .125) and Lou Holtz (3-10, .231) remain below Gase in the Jets’ well-appointed basement.

The Jets stuck with Gase through 1-7 and 0-13 starts the last two years. But after Gase won a power struggle to replace Mike Maccagnan with Joe Douglas in the front office, Douglas will now have full control of the team.

The stats of Gase’s somehow-half-decade career as an NFL coach are staggering. He has 32 wins and 33 double-digit losses. Both of Gase’s Jets teams were last in the NFL in yards; the 2019 Jets outscored Washington by 10 points to grab the crown of 31st place. (The Giants are second-tolast this year but 28 points ahead of the Jets heading into Sunday’s finales.)

And yet the football coaching fraternity protects its own. Bill Belichick comically gassed up Gase all week ahead of Sunday’s matchup.

“As usual, his excellent game-planning and play-calling are problems for the defense,” Belichick said with a presumably straight face. “This is a team that’s gotten better. ...They have a good system. He’s a good play-caller. He puts a lot of pressure on defenses in the way he sets things up and uses personnel.”

And then it wasn’t so funny. A Boston Globe reporter said Monday that “the name to watch for the Patriots’ next quarterbacks coach” was Gase.

KATELYN MULCAHY/GETTY The Jets will reportedly fire head coach Adam Gase, seen here during a November game against the Los Angeles Chargers in Inglewood, California, at the conclusion of Sunday’s regular-season finale versus the Patriots.