Thanks for the article HOJ. What if they had fired Bowles immediately instead of waiting (as they should have)? Maybe that would've resulted in more candidates. Also, if they were concerned about McCarthy's defensiveness, why didn't that raise a flag about Gase? Seems to me that they got sucked in to "wish fulfillment" as their search dragged on and candidates kept dropping. Between this article and some other things I read, I have the feeling that Gase engineered his own firing from Miami, and enlisted his best bud Peyton to help him get another job. Maybe, hopefully, this all works out, but there are some real questions about this whole thing. As for Chris denying they tried to force staff decisions on anyone, I think "He doth protest too much". I think they lost some potentially better candidates for that exact reason. And the idea that he and Macc believe they know more than experienced football minds is laughable. But, hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day, so maybe they got lucky.
That is not simple, that is simplistic. There is no reason to benchmark last year's debacle. Is two percent better an acceptable outcome? Is twenty percent? Do we need two hundred percent? Who knows, but accepting simply better, or even simply "more optimistic and confident" is not good enough to me.
He's smart enough to be putting together a top notch staff here. Parcells had a great staff. McVay has Wade Philips. Pederson has Schwartz. Andy Reid's best Eagles teams were when he had Jim Johnson running his defense. There's nothing wrong with what Gase is doing it's smart. He knows what his strength is that's where he'll focus a good amount of energy & time that doesn't mean he isn't going to know what's going on with the rest of the team. Rex's best defense here was in 2009 when he called the plays after that he gave away the playcalling to Pettine the defense was never again as good as the 2009 defense. That and he scapegoated OC after OC after OC Bowles did the same thing. Right off the bat Gase gets himself a great DC that's a great sign!!!
The funny thing is if Bowles had fired Kacy Rodgers, focused on the defense, and hired a good OC, he might still be here.
Yeah... I'm seeing it At first I was thinking the eyes are similar but honestly the ears are kind of a darkhorse comp as well.
Well the point was... and is, that Gase and Williams may not be perfect. And they may even end up being complete failures. But it is not even debatable imho that there is more reason for confidence at this point than there has been for a few years now. Its not completely outside the range of possible outcomes that this duo, plus Sam, might end up being a smashing success and start making deep playoff runs. As much as I liked coach Bowles and was hoping for a miracle I think the sad truth is that he just didn't have that kind of top end success in him. So as an absolute baseline we're better off... and I would hope we can at least be a little bit optimistic about that. That is pretty simple.
Yeah it's kind of unusual to actually be TOLD you're getting fired and still stay on to coach the last six weeks, many coaches would have forced an immediate firing. It partly speaks to the fact they knew there was nobody on the staff even worthy of being an interim coach.
You may be satisfied with a baseline that only requires more confidence than last year. My sights are set much higher. Also pretty simple.
Great article. I was surprised when the Dolphins fired him, I thought he got the most out of their talent.
Gase was not my choice leading up to the hire. I wanted the safer bet, Mike McCarthy. Watching the press conference tightened me up even more. But I've come around for two reasons: I liked that fact that when asked about making personnel decisions with the Jets, Gase said it's not a factor for him with this job. That tells me he knows it was a factor for his disappointing term in Miami. He seemed relieved to be able to focus more on coaching, knowing that personnel decisions was something that did not go well for him with the Dolphins. The second reason is that our ownership and front office usually cave to public and press opinion for marketing and sales reasons ahead of football reasons. They had to know that hiring Gase went against public opinion, yet had the guts (for once) to shut that out and hire from their gut. I admire that. Gase was not my choice. But, as others have stated here, with Gase and now Gregg Williams the coaching staff is better than it was. That's good enough for me. Plus, I hate Miami and this gives us the opportunity to embarrass them.
I don't buy that he's coaching to where football is going. His offense in Miami looked like nothing special and the Jets have worst talent on offense than the Fins. But I like the Williams hire.
There's no reason to buy that line from Johnson. He's proven with this hire that he's just as clueless about running a football organization as his brother. Gase will last about as long as Bowles did, and we'll be looking for someone who fits into whatever the fad happens to be at that point much like everyone was chasing the next Sean McVay this time around.