The Jets franchise must rid itself of Adam Gase’s historic ineptitude

Adam Gase is the worst head coach in the NFL today, and one of the worst in NFL history. The Jets must cut the cord. Now.

When Jets quarterback Sam Darnold ran for a 46-yard touchdown with 11:25 left in the first quarter against the Broncos on Thursday night, it marked the first time all season that the Jets had held a lead. That lasted less than an actual quarter of football — when Broncos third-string quarterback Brett Rypien threw a 48-yard touchdown pass to rookie receiver Jerry Jeudy with 13:09 left in the second quarter, added to a first-quarter field goal from Brandon McManus, Denver went up, 10-7.

The Jets’ eventual 37-28 loss to Denver featured several “highlights” of the Adam Gase era in New York: An outmanned and outmatched team with a gifted quarterback who has been given nearly nothing in the way of assets to help him succeed showed some odd-ball talent at times (Exhibit A: Cornerback Pierre Desir picking off two of Rypien’s three interceptions, one for a pick-six, and getting torched for eight catches on nine targets for 134 yards and two touchdowns), and a fierce adherence to stupid personal fouls that ultimately decided their fate.

The Broncos gained 359 total yards on Thursday night; they were gifted 118 more on 11 Jets penalties. The dumbest of these penalties came with eight seconds left in the game. Rypien threw the ball out of bounds on fourth-and-13, but the Broncos were given a first down in which to end the game when Jets defensive lineman Steve McClendon crashed through the line and delivered a helmet-to-helmet hit on the quarterback. Roughing the passer, 15 yards, end of game on the next play.

After the game, Broncos head coach Vic Fangio, who’s about as nice a guy as any NFL coach I’ve ever talked to, ran off the field and was heard exhorting his players to “get right the [expletive] to the locker room” as opposed to the usual tradition of shaking hands with the opposing coach at mid-field. Why? Well, Fangio probably wasn’t happy about the way his quarterback got poleaxed. He also had to pull offensive tackle Garrett Bolles away from a potential fracas with one Jets players, because Bolles appeared to have a lot so say as he was coming off the field.

“There was just a couple of personal fouls there at the end and our sideline was getting pissed off about it and I just wanted to avoid having any confrontation at the end of the game and having it get ugly there,” Fangio said after the game. “So, I tried to get our guys to leave quickly just to avoid anything happening there. I thought it was the prudent thing to do.”

As for Gase, his pattern was to rebuke his team publicly and accept no blame — which is par for the course.

“When you look at it and there’s 11 penalties for 118 yards, we hurt ourselves,” Gase said, per Brian Costello of the New York Post. “We need to get this corrected. We need to figure out what guys are going to do things right, what guys are going to do the right things at the right time. This is not the way that we’re going to play.

“We’re working to get this thing right. I’m not happy about this. I know we can play way better than this. I know we cannot beat ourselves and do the things we’re doing.”

Working to get what right? Since the Jets hired Gase, he’s put up a record of 7-13. That .350 winning percentage ranks 14th-worst in NFL history among head coaches who have coached at least one season, per Pro Football Reference. Even if you feel generous and you want to add in his 23-25 record with the Dolphins from 2016-2018, Gase still has a career winning percentage of .441, which is the worst for any current NFL coach. The only coaches currently in the NFL with worse head-coaching records? None of them are currently head coaches.

Still, it doesn’t look as if the Jets are amenable to a change at this point.

This is, of course, laughable. Gase has done nothing to develop Darnold in any tangible sense — instead, he’s turned Darnold into a quarterback who must survive outside of structure because the structure simply doesn’t work.

Gase has turned his figurative 15 minutes of fame with Peyton Manning as the Broncos’ offensive coordinator in 2013-2014, and Manning’s inexplicable endorsement of Gase, into a two-term con in which he’s shown absolutely none of the attributes required of a head coach. There is no tangible improvement. There is no positive marriage of personnel to scheme on either side of the ball, unless you want to mention the tie between Gregg Williams and stupid personal fouls. There is none of the “30,000-foot view” every great head coach has — the ability to see globally what his team needs to improve.

Instead, you have repeated disasters like the ones you saw on Thursday night, and Gase throwing first-round rookie offensive tackle Mekhi Becton under the bus because Becton was looking out for his own long-term health.

Gase’s tenure in New York has been pathetic. It has been embarrassing. It has been dangerous. It has been historically inept. And no matter what the Jets’ bedazzled front office seems to think, there is absolutely no reason for it to continue even one more day.