Tag: fire adam gase

Watch: Joe Flacco perfectly replicates the longest negative play in Super Bowl history

How had are the Jets? They’re now copying Super Bowl history — in all the worst ways.

It’s getting difficult to keep track of all the ways in which the Jets are setting all-time marks for offensive incompetence, but here’s one historical note from Miami’s 24-0 Sunday blowout of Adam Gase’s Symphony of Destruction. With 9:28 left in the game, and the Jets with the ball at the Miami 29-yard line on third-and-4, quarterback Joe Flacco took the ball from center and dropped back… and back… and back… until he was sacked for a 28-yard loss by Dolphins lineman Emmanuel Ogbah.

“I think there’s a lot of … These guys like playing together, so when other guys make plays, whether it’s offense, defense, special teams, you see a lot of excitement, a lot of energy,” Dolphins head coach Brian Flores said after the game, about Ogbah’s teammates being happy that this play took the Jets out of field goal range and preserved the shutout. “Guys were excited for Ogbah to make a play. Guys were excited about the situation, of getting a stop and getting them out of field goal range, and they were excited about the potential to get a shutout. That’s what I like to see, guys enjoying kind of the process of working through the week, prep and preparing, walk throughs, meeting, practice, and then going out and executing on a Sunday afternoon. I think they’re just happy for each other and kind of reaping some of the fruits of their labor.”

This maladjusted piece of offense immediately brought another play to mind involving the Dolphins. In Super Bowl VI on January 16, 1972, the Cowboys brought their long championship drought to an end with a commanding 24-3 win over Miami. Perhaps the spotlight play of that game was a 29-yard sack of Dolphins Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese by Cowboys Hall of Fame defensive lineman Bob Lilly. It is still the longest negative play in Super Bowl history, and the similarities are striking.

It was a long way for the then 11-year veteran to run, as he said after the game.

“I never thought I would ever catch him. I must have scrambled 100 yards, and defensive tackles aren’t supposed to do that.”

The 1972 Dolphins recovered from that loss to become the only perfect team in NFL history, and they won the next two Super Bowls. We do not expect the Jets to present a similar transformative result.

Adam Gase’s Jets offense sets a mark for historical ineptitude, then doubles down

Just when you thought the Jets’ offense couldn’t get any worse… well, it always does.

Coming into their Week 5 game against the Cardinals’ Adam Gase’s Jets already displayed among the most inept offenses on a regular basis — that’s why they’re 28th in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted efficiency metrics. But Gase is a competitor, and he clearly wanted to get a new level of offensive ineptitude going. Having backup Joe Flacco as his starting quarterback while Sam Darnold deals with a shoulder injury? Well, that helps. Having Gase call your plays? That always helps, too.

The Jets punted on each of their first three drives, and the immediacy in which they executed the first two punts set an NFL record that goes back to at least 1994, per Pro Football Reference.

Which led your intrepid analyst to post his favorite Gase-related GIF.

Still, the Jets weren’t done thinking of stinking. On their next drive, Gase called a misbegotten TE/FB cutback thing on third down from the Arizona 13-yard line that gained no yardage, and then, instead of taking the points, the call was to hand the ball to Wesco AGAIN… which led to an unsuccessful fourth-down conversion, and the Cardinals taking over at their own 13-yard line.

Give the Cardinals credit — they wanted to be hospitable hosts. Four plays after taking over on downs, Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray threw an interception to linebacker Avery Williamson, who returned the ball to the Arizona 10-yard line. The Jets responded with a drive in which Flacco underthrew receiver Jeff Smith on second down, overthrew Smith on third down, and at that point, even Gase had to admit defeat with a successful 26-yard field goal from kicker Sam Ficken.

We will leave the traditional questions about Gase’s continued employment to our weekly Power Rankings, because that’s become a tradition. But when you have a supposed offensive genius running an offense this bad? Well, we do continue to wonder.