Tag: Adam Gase

Ex-Jets OC Dowell Loggains returning to alma mater

Loggains is expected to be named the tight ends coach at Arkansas.

Dowell Loggains is getting a new job.

According to Football Scoop’s John Brice, the Arkansas Razorbacks are expected to name Loggains their new tight ends coach. Loggains is an Arkansas alum; he was the backup quarterback and placeholder for the Razorbacks in the early 2000s.

Loggains was the Jets’ offensive coordinator under former head coach Adam Gase from 2019-2020. New York’s offense couldn’t have been much worse than it was with Gase and Loggains running the show. The Jets ranked dead last in yards per game (273), 29th in passing yards (194.4), 31st in rushing yards (78.6), and 31st in points per game (17.3) in 2019.

The Jets managed to somehow get worse in 2020, even as the NFL had more touchdowns and points than it had in any other season. New York was dead last in yards per game (279.9), 31st in passing yards (174.8), 23rd in rushing yards (105.2), and 32nd in points per game (15.2).

Loggains’ first NFL coaching job came as the offensive quality control coordinator with the Tennessee Titans in 2008. He worked his way up through the ranks and was named the Titans quarterbacks coach in 2010. He was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2012.

After being relieved of his coordinator duties by the Titans in 2014, Loggains became the quarterbacks coach with the Cleveland Browns. He did that for a year and was then hired for the same position with the Chicago Bears in 2015. That was when Loggains first paired with Gase. Loggains was then named the Bears’ offensive coordinator in 2016 after Gase left for Miami. He held that job for two seasons.

Gase brought Loggains on as the offensive coordinator with the Dolphins in 2018. The two were reunited again when Gase was named the Jets’ head coach in 2019.

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Le’Veon Bell rips Adam Gase-era Jets on Twitter

Le’Veon Bell blamed the Jets for his recent failures in a series of tweets on Thursday.

The future is bright at One Jets Drive with Robert Saleh running the show, but it wasn’t too long ago that Florham Park was a hopeless place under Adam Gase’s watch.

Gase ran the Jets into the ground throughout his two years with the team, making New York the laughingstock of football for the majority of 2020. Le’Veon Bell was one of many who was part of the trainwreck for a year and a half before his unceremonious release midway through last season.

On Thursday, Bell took to social media to provide some insight into just how bad the Gase era was, taking shots at his former team in a series of tweets.

While Bell’s gripe with the way his time with the Jets went is somewhat warranted, there are some holes in his argument. Bell finished eighth in the NFL in touches with 311 in 2019. That does not play into his theory that he was not given enough opportunities to make plays, even if Gase’s playcalling was predictable.

Bell also flopped with the Chiefs after the Jets released him in October, rushing for just 254 yards and two touchdowns on 63 carries in nine games with Kansas City. Yardage was even tougher for Bell to come by after he left New York, indicating the 29-year-old has indeed lost a step — even if he isn’t willing to admit it.

Bell did plenty of good things off the field while he was with the Jets, but he will ultimately be remembered as a free agent signing Mike Maccagnan never should have made. Gase deserves nearly all the blame for New York’s recent failures, but Bell never did much to make himself part of the solution.

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Jets hire former Eagles, Dolphins coach Matt Burke for game-management role

Burke joins the Jets in a game management role after 17 years of defensive coaching experience.

Robert Saleh added another member to his coaching staff Wednesday.

The Jets hired Matt Burke for a game-management role, according to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo. Burke is a 15-year defensive coaching veteran, but he’ll work with both sides of the ball in his new job with the Jets, per Garafolo.

Burke spent the past two seasons with the Eagles, first as a defensive assistant in 2019 and then as a defensive line and run game coordinator in 2020. Before that, he served as Adam Gase’s linebackers coach for the Dolphins in 2016 and his defensive coordinator from 2017-2018. Burke’s Miami defenses weren’t fantastic – they ranked 23rd in yards allowed and 28th in points allowed on average over his two seasons – but they did rank fifth in takeaways in 2018.

Burke also coached linebackers with the Lions from 2009-2013 and the Bengals from 2014-2015. He broke into the NFL as an administrative assistant with the Titans from 2004-2005 and was promoted to defensive quality control coach in Tennessee from 2006-2008.

It’s unclear exactly what Burke’s role will be on the game-management side, but Burke has a wealth of NFL coaching experience and a few connections to the Jets – other than Gase. He worked with Jets senior defensive assistant and cornerbacks coach Tony Oden in Miami in 2018, as well as defensive backs coach Marquand Manuel and assistant defensive line coach Nate Ollie in Philadelphia in 2020. He also coached defensive end Vinny Curry in Philadelphia the past two seasons.

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Robert Saleh didn’t have to set such lofty expectations for Jets offense

There was no need for Robert Saleh to set high expectations for the Jets’ offense considering how low the bar is after the last two years.

Robert Saleh was his usual jubilant and energized self during his pre-draft media availability Thursday, but one specific question got New York’s rookie head coach going to the point where he could not contain his excitement.

When quizzed about the direction of the Jets offense under Mike LaFleur’s leadership, Saleh wasted no time setting the bar for the unit high. He called his offensive coordinator’s system “the best scheme in the world,” per The Athletic’s Connor Hughes.

While all but certainly speaking in hyperbole, Saleh does have reason to be excited about LaFleur’s system given his experience watching it thrive up close with Kyle Shanahan calling the shots in San Francisco. Saleh just didn’t have to set the bar so high given the product the Jets have put on the field the last two seasons.

Adam Gase and Dowell Loggains (mostly Gase except, that stretch he sort of, but not really, allowed Loggains to actually do his job instead of functioning as a glorified clipboard holder and challenge flag-thrower) orchestrated one of the worst offenses in football in their two years with the Jets. New York’s offense never took flight with Gase and Loggains running the show, ranking dead last in 2019 and 2020 — a level of incompetence Rich Kotite couldn’t even match on his worst day.

Gase and Loggains derailed Sam Darnold’s development to the point where Joe Douglas felt the need to trade him and take his chances on drafting a rookie quarterback. They never made any sort of effort to allow Robby Anderson to grow and allowed Frank Gore to work as a feature back despite being in the twilight of his career and a stable of young, promising running backs waiting in the wings behind him. The Jets weren’t exactly loaded with talent the last two seasons, but Gase and Loggains did absolutely nothing to maximize what they did have in the building.

It can be argued that even though LaFleur has never actually worked as an offensive coordinator, he is already better at calling plays than Gase and Loggains ever were — except when Peyton Manning was busy carrying Gase with the Broncos. Shanahan was at the forefront of the 49ers’ offensive scheme when LaFleur was in the building, but he did have his say in shaping San Francisco’s passing attack and its success with play-action, which is set to be a staple of the Jets’ offense in 2021 and beyond.

Saleh’s optimism is refreshing. There hasn’t been much reason for anyone at One Jets Drive to express any sort of hope the last two years, but his arrival changed all that. There just wasn’t any need for him to set such high expectations for LaFleur and his offense.

As long as LaFleur shows up for work once Week 1 rolls around, there is a good chance he’ll have accomplished more in his first four quarters as a primary play-caller than Gase and Loggains ever did during their time on the sideline with the Jets. For now, that’s more than enough.

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Why Panthers fans shouldn’t be optimistic that Sam Darnold’s problems are fixable

It’s not all Adam Gase’s fault. Or the supporting case. Darnold has been bad.

I’ve had time to sleep on it. It’s been nearly 48 hours since Sam Darnold officially became a member of the Carolina Panthers and, though I’ve calmed down a bit, I still don’t feel much better about the move.

It was a short-sighted move that speaks to the impatience from both ownership and the front office that has held the franchise back from committing to a sorely needed rebuild. I explained here why I disagreed with both the move itself and the timing of it.

Whatever.

None of that matters now. The trade has been made so the only thing Panthers fans can do is look forward and hope that 1) this coaching staff can resurrect a once-promising career and 2) this is one of those instances of bad process leading to good results.

I mean, it is possible. Darnold is a talented player and he was drafted third overall for a reason. He’s capable of doing stuff like this…

A year ago, I warned Jets fans about falling for those flashes, and now here I am a year later trying to offer one up as a potential sign of hope. But, really, they are all you have to hold onto at this point. Whether you’re analyzing Darnold’s three years in the NFL through a qualitative or quantitative lens, it’s not pretty.

When watching his film from the 2020 season, it’s hard to see much of a difference between it and his 2019 film … or his 2018 film … or his college film. You get the point. Of course, it’s hard to ignore Adam Gase’s offense and the Jets’ lackluster supporting cast making things actively harder for the young quarterback, but the reverse is true, too. Darnold isn’t doing his part, either.

That becomes glaringly obvious when you look at metrics designed to isolate his play. Sports Info Solutions’ proprietary Points Earned metric, which is based on the Expected Points Added model, ranked Darnold as the second-worst quarterback in the league in 2020. Only Carson Wentz was worse, while guys like Gardner Minshew, Drew Lock, and Mitchell Trubisky were all better. Wentz and Darnold, both of whom were traded this offseason, were on their own island of awfulness. Nick Foles finished just ahead of them but the gap between him and those two was SIGNIFICANT…

It gets worse. The Jets’ offensive line was awful, right? Well, Darnold was abysmal even in a clean pocket. He graded out as the 32nd-ranked quarterback when kept clean, according to Pro Football Focus. And his Big-time Throw rate was near the bottom of the league at 1.7 percent. So wasn’t just bad when given a clean pocket, he was boring.

That’s one thing that stands out when watching Darnold’s film. He’s not really the gunslinger he’s made out to be. There’s a reason why his highlights are always out-of-structure: In structure, he’s terribly conservative. Gase was criticized for his painfully horizontal offense, but have we considered the possibility that it was a result of Darnold’s own limitations as a passer? Those short throws were the only ones he was actually capable of making at an above-average rate…

via Pro Football Focus’ 2021 QB Annual

Even the most ardent Darnold skeptics can’t deny it: The man can throw a swing pass.

Panthers fans gave up on Teddy Bridgewater because of his tendency to throw short but it’s not like Darnold was significantly more aggressive. Bridgewater’s average throw traveled 7.3 yards past the line of scrimmage, according to RBSDM.com. Darnold’s aDOT was 7.8. His average throw traveled 1.1 yards short of the sticks while Bridgewater was at 1.6. We can’t blame the Jets offense for that either. Joe Flacco averaged 11 air yards per pass attempt and his average throw traveled 2.2 yards PAST the sticks.

Flacco wasn’t just more aggressive. He was better, which really throws a wrench into the whole “Gase ruined Darnold” argument. The former Super Bowl MVP outperformed his younger counterpart in every conceivable measure, including PFF grade, EPA and QBR. Even if you throw away the first half of Darnold’s 2020 campaign, when the Jets’ supporting cast was banged up, that remains true. Flacco’s superior performance kills any argument claiming that Darnold’s league-worst production was the direct result of a poor support system. We can ask “how many quarterbacks would succeed in such a situation?” but we can just as easily ask “how many quarterbacks would have performed better?” We have at least one answer to that question: A 35-year-old Joe Flacco.

The environment in which a quarterback play is going to affect all of the metrics laid out here, but I think we’ve overstated just how much of an influence Gase’s play-calling could have reasonably had on Darnold’s performance. We’ve seen Gase get decent results out of Jay Cutler and Ryan Tannehill. Peyton Manning had one of his better years with Gase calling suggesting plays. His reputation as a QB killer is based wholly on Tannehill breaking out in a friendly environment in Tennessee and Darnold being awful … and the former was much better during his time playing under Gase.

Gase’s scheme can’t be that bad. Defenses weren’t just gloving up every route he called. They can’t defend everything! Cutler, Tannehill and even a late-career Flacco managed to be much better in the same offense. So even if you believe Darnold was a victim of Gase’s schematic buffoonery, that still says something about his inability to find second or third options consistently, which is one of the hallmarks of good quarterback play. Making good decisions and throwing accurately are two other big ones and both have been problems for Darnold going back to his time in college. In many respects, Darnold is still that same prospect he was coming out of USC. Only he’s a few years older and a bit more expensive.

I guess you can say Gase didn’t do a good job of developing him (probably true) but why do we think Joe Brady will do any better? Teddy Bridgewater was Teddy Bridgewater last year. If he didn’t get any boost from this coaching staff, why do we assume Darnold will? Brady has a reputation for elevating quarterbacks, but he was only the passing coordinator at LSU when a 23-year-old Joe Burrow led the Tigers to a national championship (Burrow is actually older than Darnold.)

This is not what Panthers fans want to read. I know this. I wish I could be more optimistic but it’s just really hard to do so without dusting off pre-draft scouting reports from three years ago or posting those thirst-trap highlights that Darnold produces every couple of games.

After escaping Gase and the Jets, Darnold will almost certainly be better than he has been. But all of the evidence suggests that he will almost certainly not be good enough to be a long-term answer in Carolina.

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The Jets had no 4,000-yard passers in the 16-game era

Beyond Joe Namath’s early production, the Jets have been cursed with bad quarterbacking through most of their history.

It’s interesting that for a team whose best-known player is a former quarterback (Joe Namath, of course), the New York Jets have been living in QB purgatory for a very long time. Of course, if you’re a Jets fan, it’s less “interesting” and more “disgusting,” but we digress. Namath was the first quarterback in pro football history to throw for over 4,000 yards in a season, which he did with the American Football League’s Jets in 1967. But since then, no other Jets quarterback (including Namath) managed to do it, even when the NFL increased the number of regular-season games from 14 to 16 in 1978.

Now that the 16-game season appears to be a thing of the past in favor of a 17-game campaign in 2021 and beyond, it behooves us to mention that the Jets are one of two teams to never have a quarterback throw for 4,000 yards in the 16-game era. The Bears, of course, are the other. Now, the Bears haven’t had a franchise-defining quarterback since Sid Luckman’s last good season in 1946, so that’s an entirely different quarterback curse. The Jets’ quarterback curse is one in which one quarterback set the standard for passing yards, and after that, nobody else could come even close.

It helps to mention the guys who were responsible for this statistical no man’s land from 1978 through the present, because it explains a lot.

Matt Robinson, Richard Todd, Pat Ryan, Ken O’Brien, Browning Nagle, Boomer Esiason, Frank Reich, Neil O’Donnell, Vinny Testaverde, Ray Lucas, Vinny Testaverde again, Chad Pennington, Brooks Bollinger, Brett Favre (for one season), Mark Sanchez, Geno Smith, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Josh McCown, and Sam Darnold.

Fitzpatrick came the closest with 3,905 yards in 2015 — a season in which he also threw for 31 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. This is most likely the best quarterback season in Jets history, such as it was. Sadly, Fitzmagic finished his season with a 181-yard, three-interception performance against the Bills. Perhaps some things were just never meant to happen.

If Fitzpatrick’s 2015 wasn’t the best quarterback season in franchise history, Ken O’Brien’s 1985 might have been. That year, O’Brien threw for 3,888 yards, 25 touchdowns, and just eight interceptions. His primary issue that season was that he had to face the ’85 Bears defense in Week 16, which resulted in a 19-6 loss in which O’Brien completed 12 of 26 passes for 122 yards. Not that any other quarterback fared any better against Buddy Ryan’s guys that year.

And there was Vinny Testaverde, the NFL’s ultimate stat collector, who in 2000 threw for 3,732 yards, 21 touchdowns, and 25 interceptions. Which sums things up nicely.

Richard Todd and Mark Sanchez had their moments, respectively, with 3,478 yards in 1983 and 3,474 yards in 2011. And then, there was Brett Favre, who played one year for the Jets (2008) in his time between the Packers and the Vikings. In 2007, his last year with the Packers, Favre amassed 4,155 passing yards. In 2009, his first year with the Vikings, Favre amassed 4,202 passing yards. In 2008 with the Jets? 3,472 yards, and a league-leading 22 interceptions. Oof.

Of recent note is Sam Darnold, who has been confined to his own offensive coach hell in the NFL with Jeremy Bates, Dowell Loggains, and (horror of all horrors) Adam Gase overseeing the entire disaster. Darnold has broken 3,000 yards just once in his three NFL seasons, the Jets might be moving on without him, and though the presence of new offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur augurs well for the Jets’ QB future… well, how many times have we said that before with different guys in charge?

Even Namath was never able to match his historic season again. In 1968, the season that ended with the Jets beating the Colts in Super Bowl III, Namath threw for just 3,147 yards, had a six-game stretch with no touchdown passes, and didn’t throw a single pass in the fourth quarter of that historic game. Due to injuries, Namath’s passing yards would plummet over the next few seasons — from 4,007 in 1967, to 3,147 in 1968, to 2,734 in 1969, to 1,259 in 1970, to 537 in 1971. He did manage a few more high-volume seasons, but more and more, he was the guy leading the league in interceptions more than anything else.

As we have noted, some teams just have a quarterback curse.

Adam Gase calls Texans LB Jordan Jenkins ‘old school’

Houston Texans linebacker Jordan Jenkins is an “old school” type of player, according to former Jets coach Adam Gase.

The Houston Texans bolstered their linebacking corps in free agency with the addition of former New York Jets linebacker Jordan Jenkins.

Adam Gase, who was the coach of the Jets from 2019-20, was complimentary of the former 2016 third-round pick late in New York’s 2-14 campaign.

“That guy is old-school,’’ Gase said on Dec. 5, 2020, via Mark Cannizzaro of the New York Post. “You’re going to have to saw off a limb for him not to be out there. It’s how he grew up. It’s how he was raised. If you know his background, it’s who he is. When you dig into his background, it all makes sense why he is who he is.”

According to Gase via Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle, Jenkins popped his shoulder back into place during a game early in the 2020 season, and only missed a play in the process.

Said Gase: “I’m not sure I’ve been around many players that are tougher — just flat-out tougher — than him. You saw the guy earlier in the season with his shoulder out of place and he pops it back in, comes off for like a play and runs back out there. The guy is an absolute beast as far as his mindset of not wanting to come out of games, constantly just being that guy to rely on.”

Jenkins provided the Jets with 189 combined tackles, 22.5 sacks, 25 tackles for loss, seven forced fumbles, five fumble recoveries, and eight pass breakups in 72 games, 62 of which he started.

Texans general manager Nick Caserio got a good look at Jenkins twice a season as the Jets were division rivals with the New England Patriots, the franchise where Caserio had been employed in various capacities since 2001. The 6-3, 259-pound linebacker is part of Caserio’s “singles and doubles” strategy to get Houston around the bases competitively in 2021.

Ex-Jets OC Dowell Loggains joins Penn State’s coaching staff

Ex-Jets offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains is joining Penn State, will serve as an offensive analyst on James Franklin’s coaching staff.

Dowell Loggains is headed to Happy Valley.

No, the former Jets offensive coordinator won’t be calling plays for Penn State. But he is joining head coach James Franklin’s staff as an offensive analyst, according to multiple reports.

Loggains was the Jets’ offensive coordinator the last two seasons under Adam Gase. He held the same post under Gase in Miami in 2018 and followed him to New York. The Jets ranked 31st in points in 2019 and 32nd in 2020 under Loggains and Gase’s guidance.

Loggains played his college football at Arkansas. This will be his first coaching stint at the college level. Loggains got his coaching start with the Titans in 2008, serving as an offensive quality control coach before working his way up to quarterbacks coach and then offensive coordinator.

After leaving Tennessee, Loggains served as the Browns and Bears quarterbacks coach. He was later promoted to Chicago’s offensive coordinator once Gase left to become the Dolphins’ head coach.

4 things to know about new Jets cornerbacks coach Tony Oden

Jets Wire takes a look at what Tony Oden brings to Robert Saleh’s staff as the Jets’ cornerbacks coach.

Robert Saleh continued to add to his first Jets coaching staff this week, hiring three defensive assistant coaches. That includes Tony Oden, who will serve as a senior defensive assistant and the team’s cornerbacks coach.

Oden has a great deal of coaching experience, spending significant time in the collegiate ranks before moving to the NFL in 2004. Oden is the latest former 49ers defensive assistant to follow Saleh to New York.

Let’s get to know a little bit more about New York’s newest cornerbacks coach.

Robert Saleh’s desire to get his players paid will win over Jets’ locker room

Robert Saleh’s desire to get his players paid should make him an instant hit in the Jets’ locker room.

Robert Saleh has yet to run a single practice as Jets head coach and he likely already has a better hold of the locker room than Adam Gase ever did in his two years with the team.

Saleh’s goals were made clear during his introductory press conference Thursday. He wants to win championships, and he wants to do so with a process that requires an “all gas, no brake” mentality in which daily improvement is the key.

He also wants to do everything in his power to take care of his players — especially financially.

Saleh went out of his way to note that he wants New York’s players to “get paid as much as possible.” It’s not his job to hand out contracts, but with effective coaching, Saleh has the power to help his players maximize their earning potential once it comes time for them to negotiate a new deal.

“It’s an absolute joy to see them get to the pinnacle of their career where they can get second contracts and get rewarded,” Saleh said, per ESPN’s Rich Cimini.

Players often say winning is everything, but money remains king at the end of the day. Whether they are willing to admit it or not, every player wants to be in a position to land a lucrative contract at some point in their career. There is now a head coach in place at One Jets Drive who is intent on making that happen for each player on his team.

There is no doubt that Saleh’s words resonated with New York’s players and won him his fair share of early fans in the locker room. He does not just want to win big, he wants to win big and keep his players happy. That is not exactly what Jets players have been used to since 2019.

Yes, Saleh is here to turn the Jets from AFC bottom-feeders to perennial contenders, but he is going to go about doing so in a way that will also take the locker room and getting the best out of it into account. As long as he does his job and coaches the team up as well as expected, New York’s players are going to be celebrating more than just wins on most weekends.

And, if Saleh follows through on his plan, they’re going to cashing sizeable paychecks, too.