Sam’s the man & Gase is the guy? Prove it!
Darnold, coach have to give long-suffering Jets fans some hope
It was just the other day that interim owner of the Jets, Christopher Johnson, offered a ringing defense of Adam Gase, a guy who more and more feels like the Jets interim coach. Johnson said that Gase has a “brilliant” offensive mind. Prove it.
We heard that we were getting a quarterback whisperer with Gase after he was fired in Miami. Maybe one of these days there will be a Sunday with Sam Darnold and the Jets offense when they actually shout that at their fans. Maybe this Sunday against the 49ers.
Maybe this Sunday against the 49ers the Jets will actually give their fans something they have not given them, not really, for far too long. They can give them hope. If they can’t do that, and soon — and that means over the first half of the schedule — why in the world would Christopher Johnson or Woody Johnson or Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson think that Gase will be coaching the Jets next season? For now he just looks like another Jets coach to go in with Todd Bowles and make you look back and think Rex Ryan was the good old days.
We all know how much of this is general manager Joe Douglas’ show going forward, because Douglas isn’t going anywhere, at least not anytime soon. So much of how Douglas will be evaluated will play out over the next offseason (these are the Jets, of course, so already we are thinking about the next offseason before the season they are playing is two games old). We will see what Douglas does with cap space, and if he can finally start doing something that no Jets general manager has done in years, which means put a bunch of offensive players on the field at MetLife Stadium that Jets fans still want to watch.
Still: If Gase is truly the brilliant offensive mind that Christopher Johnson says he is, ask yourself a question: Why do we all sometimes feel as if Sam Darnold showed as much promise as a rookie under Todd Bowles than he has under Gase? You know what Joe Burrow has already done in Cincinnati, every bit as much of a lost-boy franchise as the Jets? He has given his fans hope.
This isn’t all on Darnold, especially now with Le’Veon Bell and Jamison Crowder hurt, even though Bell looks more and more like an interim Jet, too. This isn’t all on Gase and no one would fairly suggest it is. But Darnold and the Jets looked so lost last Sunday against the Bills that some Jets fans I know were actually wondering if three years after drafting Darnold No. 3 they might be bad enough this season to get a shot at Trevor Lawrence.
You know that the Giants have lost more games than any team in the NFL over the past three seasons. You know how the Giants have lost their way since their last Super Bowl in Indy against the Patriots. But the Giants won that Super Bowl in the last decade. They won a Super Bowl in the decade before that. The Jets? They did go to two straight AFC championship games with Rex and with another USC wonder boy, Mark
Sanchez. You know where they both are now? ESPN. You know what’s happened to the Jets over the years since the last championship game at Heinz Field? They have won 42% of their football games. Over the same period of time the Knicks have won 40% of their games.
Something else to consider, when considering the plight of Jets fans at this time: Since that last title game, a Sunday on which the Jets gave the Steelers all they wanted on the road and had them scared half to death in the fourth quarter, the New York Knicks have had more winning seasons than the New York Jets have had. They got so bad finally that they did end up with the third pick in the draft. They went to USC for Darnold the same as Woody Johnson and Mike Tannenbaum and Rex went to the same school for Sanchez.
I like Darnold, by the way. He’s still just 23. I think he has had the same bad luck around him that Gase has had, especially with playmakers. The Giants have Saquon Barkley in the backfield with Daniel Jones, who loves throwing the ball to Darius Slayton, who looks like he could end up a star. But perhaps the second most frightening thing to come out of Florham Park this week after Johnson stopped talking about Gase’s brilliance
was Gase himself saying Jamison Crowder having been the Jets best offensive player the past two years.
Crowder is a nice player. The Jets best player was supposed to be Sam Darnold by now. This starts to make you remember the days when Darrelle Revis was the Jets best player. Guess what? When you’re a football fan and your best player is a cornerback, you’re screwed. Jets fans know the feeling. The Knicks at least start all over now with a coach, Tom Thibodeau, who once won 62 games with the Bulls and won 50 two other times and won 47 with the Timberwolves. When the Jets got Gase, when Gase was the end of the star search the last time they were hiring a coach, his record in Miami was 23-25 and he’d made the playoffs once.
“I have full confidence in Adam,” Christopher Johnson said. “I’ve seen him interact with this team. I’ve seen him lead this team. Look back to last year, he took a team that did so poorly in the first half of the season and held them together.”
Against the 49ers on Sunday, the Jets need to look like something under than the second division of the league against the 49ers, a young team that made its move all the way to a Super Bowl last season. When the Jets made their own move last season, it was during garbage time. T he Jets need to start showing their fans that Gase might be the right coach. Darnold needs to start showing he’s the right quarterback. The Jets need a game. Their fans need some hope.