Adam Gase may be on the hot seat if the Jets flounder this week.
The New York Jets are 0-2, look like the worst team in football, and are set to play two games in five days, traveling to Indianapolis today before hosting the Denver Broncos on Thursday night. It is no secret that Gase isn’t a good coach and is holding the Jets back, but it looks like the front office may finally be catching on.
ESPN’s Chris Mortensen is reporting that the “outside noise” surrounding Gase could put him on the hot seat if the Jets continue to look lousy in the next week. New York is widely expected to lose badly in Indianapolis, where the 1-1 Colts are favored by 11.5 points, but logic would dictate they should be more competitive on Thursday against Denver.
That game will see the Broncos, who are starting Jeff Driskel at quarterback and may be without key playmakers like Jerry Jeudy and Phillip Lindsay, fly across two time zones on a short week to play the Jets. The travel alone should give the Jets a chance to win, but the team hasn’t looked like it belongs on an NFL field and has been decimated by injuries.
Veteran players like Bradley McDougald and Avery Williamson have also called out the team’s poor practices in the media, which reflects horribly on Gase. While owner Christopher Johnson has appeared willing to ignore fan criticism of his hand-picked coach who he recently called a “brilliant offensive mind,” the players being unhappy has raised eyebrows.
If the Jets deliver a lackluster effort against teams they should be able to compete with it would be a clear sign they have quit on this head coach, which is problematic with 12 games left in the season. Moving on from Gase would allow the Jets to get a better read on Sam Darnold as well since they may have a big quarterback decision to make after the season.
Darnold has shown plenty of promise at the NFL level but has been hamstrung by poor roster construction giving him a receiving corps for the Colts’ matchup headlined by Braxton Berrios, Chris Hogan and Josh Malone. That group would have a hard time headlining an XFL team, but Darnold has also appeared to go backwards, making the kinds of mistakes a third-year quarterback should have ironed out of his game by now.
Firing Gase would give the Jets a chance to see how Darnold fares without his unimaginative game plans ahead of a draft where they could end up with the top pick if they continue to play poorly against a tough schedule. It is certainly fair to say we should be on Gase watch over the next five days.