So, the Jets have made their choice and after eight interviews with potential candidates, they settled on former Dolphins head coach Adam Gase to be their leading man. He will be introduced on Monday, though the outrage immediately began when the announcement was made.
The Jets seem to make the easy things more difficult. Instead of minimizing risk out of their hire, they added risk into their evaluation.
I am not saying that this is a brutal hire or that it can’t work, but it is a difficult sell to bring on an individual and tab him as the solution when he was part of the problem with a division rival.
I get that everyone deserves a second chance and Gase is getting one, very quickly. With such a quick turnaround in jobs, do you think Gase has had the opportunity for a little introspection as far as why he ultimately failed in Miami? What can he do better and where does he need to improve to be a more successful head coach?
We have seen many guys jump quickly to another job as head coach after being fired like Rex Ryan, Chip Kelly, and Eric Mangini. They ultimately failed in yet another destination and failed rather quickly.
If Gase does not learn from his mistakes in Miami, he will fail once again. Has he had time to learn from those failures since he has been rewarded with yet another head coach opportunity in the NFL? I am not sure that you can make the argument that he has.
He has not been humbled, he failed up to a better job with a more talented, younger quarterback in Sam Darnold.
Communication was certainly a reported issue for Gase in Miami. He lost the Dolphins’ locker room at the end of the 2018 season, which included him yelling at the team owner after a gut-wrenching loss to the Colts in Week 12.
He displayed some thin skin when he was criticized by the media, too, which is a disaster in the making here in New York.
It is great to have an ‘all in’ mentality and be ‘blunt and honest’ when communicating, but Gase needs to evolve and know that the NFL is a player’s league and you need talent to win.
Instead of chasing stars like Jarvis Landry away from your team, you want game-changing talent to be a part of your team. Gase might be a brilliant offensive mind, but must be a brilliant leader. These are just some of the concerns and reservation and the risk with the Jets hiring him. The Jets did their homework and were comfortable with the risk and only time will tell, on the field, if they were right.
I also have a hard time overlooking the fact that the Jets did not hire their preferred choice. Reportedly, their top candidate was Baylor University coach and New York City native Matt Ruhle.
Every other team that was looking for a new head coach, got their man. Not the Jets though, as they could not come to an agreement with Rhule on how to fill out the rest of the coaching staff. Rhule made the correct decision to go back to college because he will get another opportunity to coach in the NFL down the line, which leaves the Jets with their apparent second choice in Gase.
I am not saying that he can’t be successful with the Jets, but there is a greater risk of failure.
He is an ‘alpha’ male and is confident, which means he should have more entertaining press conferences. But he simply needs to win.
Everyone will move on, if he does that.
