Adam Gase responds to critical comments on Jets’ practice habits: ‘I haven’t necessarily felt that’

Jets head coach Adam Gase responded to comments about New York’s practice habits on Wednesday.

Adam Gase is not in agreement with the recent criticisms that have been offered about the Jets’ practice habits.

Following New York’s 31-13 loss to the 49ers in Week 2, Bradley McDougald said the Jets have been struggling in practice. Avery Williamson reciprocated those thoughts while appearing on his weekly WFAN guest spot with Joe Beningo and Evan Roberts on Tuesday.

“I definitely can agree with [McDougald] at times; sometimes in practice, guys are missing tackles or we’re not doing things right, we haven’t been as crisp as we should be at times,” Williamson said. “Or starting fast – he’s definitely correct that at times, we don’t start fast at practice. We haven’t the last two weeks, but that’s something we have to fix ourselves, because you can’t come out sluggish in games and expect to win. It’s tough to recover when a team you’re playing is that good.”

On Wednesday, Gase told reporters Williamson texted him to clarify his comments and that he felt they were not being reported the way he meant them, per the New York Post’s Brian Costello. Gase responded to the comments, saying that players can voice their concerns during the week if they have any.

“Nobody said anything during the week. I felt like we had really good tempo to practice,” Gase said. “Sometimes, an individual guy, if he wants to change something, I mean…we talk about it every week, it’s not like it’s not an open forum. If somebody doesn’t like the way something’s going, we can easily speak up.

“If that’s the feeling they have, we have a chance to ramp it up and make sure we’re doing what we need to do in individuals and pick up the tempo. I haven’t necessarily felt that.”

New York is off to a poor start this season, but there is still time for the Jets to fix things and put a winning product on the field as they did at the end of last season. Digging out of an 0-2 hole is tough, but it’s not an impossible task — even for a team that has looked out of sorts.

Whether it be changing practice habits or making tweaks to their routine, the Jets still have the opportunity to flip the script before it’s too late. At the end of the day, it comes down to the players working with the coaching staff hand-in-hand to make that happen.

“We’re in this together,” McDougald said. “Nobody’s coming in to save us…right now, people are probably looking at us like, ‘Oh we got the Jets this week. I’m going to get my numbers up.’ Until we can stop other teams from thinking like that or we go out and punch somebody in the mouth and we make them deal with us four quarters at a time, none of it matters.”