Somehow, someway, the New York Jets find a way to take optimistic expectations, light them on fire, and stomp them out on your front porch almost every single season.
And this season might just be the worst we’ve seen.
With the high hopes that came with the acquisition of Le’Veon Bell, CJ Mosley, along with the continued development of Sam Darnold, this was supposed to be a stepping-stone season toward contention in the AFC East.
Instead, the Jets are 0-4 and an absolute dumpster fire.
And you have to look no further than the coaching staff, particularly Adam Gase.
The Jets head coach has done absolutely nothing with the Darnold-less unit as the young passer continues to recover from mononucleosis.
A season-ending ankle injury suffered by second-string quarterback Trevor Siemian in Week 2 against the Cleveland Browns has forced Gase to trot out 2018 sixth-round pick Luke Falk for the past two-plus games.
The results have been disastrous.
Over their last three games, the Jets have recorded just nine offensive points while averaging 165 yards of total offense.
Week 5 against the Philadelphia Eagles appears to be rock-bottom for the Jets. Falk was sacked nine times before David Fales was subjected to one of his own.
Le’Veon Bell accounted for almost 70-percent of the Jets’ offensive production on the day as Gase’s offense looked as unimaginative as ever.
So much for that offensive guru.
I get it, Gase is extremely shorthanded right now. Playing a third-string quarterback against a brutal schedule (Patriots, Eagles, Cowboys in three-straight games) is going to hamper your chances to win.
An offensive line that saw an injured Kelechi Osemele replaced by Alex Lewis and Brandon Shell benched for Chuma Edoga — who made his first career start — is going to hamper your chances to win.
But the head coach did not help his chances at all when it came to pregame preparations.
Falk did not receive a single practice rep with the first-team offense — Gase opting to give the recovering Darnold all the snaps last week until Friday despite not being ready to play on Sunday.
That’s just setting your team up to fail and as irresponsible as you can be as a football coach.
The thing is, Jets sympathists can’t simply point to a third-string quarterback starting as the main reason why the Jets are this bad.
Just look around the league and you’ll see reserve quarterbacks stepping up everywhere.
Gardner Minshew, who was also a sixth-round pick a year after Falk, has won two of his last three games with the Jacksonville Jaguars after Nick Foles went down with a season-ending broken clavicle.
Devlin Hodges, an undrafted rookie out of Samford, led the Pittsburgh Steelers on two scoring drives against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday after Mason Rudolph’s exit following a terrifying hit to the head.
Kyle Allen, an undrafted second-year QB out of Texas A&M, has led the Carolina Panthers to three-straight wins with Cam Newton sidelined.
Legitimate NFL coaches can adjust their gameplan even when backup quarterbacks are called into action.
Gase and the Jets have continued to look completely unprepared throughout Darnold’s absence to the point where you have to start doubting what can be done when the first-string quarterback returns.
That’s not the kind of offensive mind that should be running an NFL team.
