The Gase Race Heats Up In The Big Apple

Well, that didn’t take long. Just four months after having been hired by the New York Jets to become their head coach, Adam Gase has won a stunning power struggle in New York and engineered the ouster of former Jets GM Mike Maccagnan. What’s more, Gase has also been named interim GM by the team’s ownership, and will almost certainly have considerable input into who Woody and Chris Johnson ultimately bring in to run the team’s personnel department.

This is just the latest chapter in the the rollercoaster like, often incestuous soap opera known as the AFC East. Rex Ryan became head coach of the Jets in 2009, and promptly stated that he didn’t become their coach to “kiss Bill Belichick’s rings”. Upon being fired by the Jets six seasons later, Ryan would go on to coach their in state rival and fellow AFC East combatant, the Buffalo Bills. Belichick himself was hired by the Jets in 2000, but immediately resigned at his introductory press conference to go to New England instead. When the news of Gase’s firing came out in January, Ryan was said to be putting a coaching staff together, with the expectation that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross might come calling. Mercifully, that didn’t happen, and now, in the unending game of musical chairs within the division, former de facto Patriots defensive coordinator Brian Flores is coaching the Dolphins.

Fortunately for Jets fans, New York has a roster that, at this juncture appears to be fairly loaded. They have a formidable defensive line and the team has spent copiously, perhaps too much so, to bring in talent on offense to give Sam Darnold plenty of weapons. You’ll notice that Gase didn’t cite Darnold’s presence as one of the main reasons he took the job, at least not overtly so. He didn’t have to. You only say that you took a coaching job because of the quarterback when everyone knows your team has a mediocre quarterback. When a coach says, “I took this job because of the quarterback”, that’s Latin for, “For this team to get where it wants to go, the QB has to play a lot better”. So now, we can expect plenty of folks to pull up Tannehill’s career stats and argue that they’re better than Darnold’s were as a rookie last season. Okay.

So, the Jets probably won’t be much fun for us when we have to play them for the next year or two, but they’ll implode eventually. They always do. I’d also like to extend a hearty ‘Welcome Back’ (if he ever left, that is) to SSL.128. This guy is fantastic, and the site isn’t the same without him. His recent posting of the Pink Panther’s Inspector Clouseau was hilarious, and SSL is a literary giant unsurpassed by anyone one here. Now, if I just get him to stop calling me the King of Spain, we’ll be cooking on all burners. It started when I said a few years ago that if Dion Jordan was a linebacker in a 4-3 defense, then I’m the King of Spain. He wasn’t and isn’t, but hey, if you want to call me the King of Spain, anyway, that’s okay. I’ve been called worse, I do declare.