What was inexcusable about it? The Eagles lost to the Dolphins and Lions. Seattle lost to the Cardinals at home late in the season. It might have cost them a first round bye? TN lost to Carolina, JAX and were blown out by the Chargers in a must win game. Buffalo lost to the Browns. Playoff teams lose to bad teams. Mediocre teams like the Jets lose away games to bad teams all the time. The Jets weren't a playoff or even a mediocre team last year. They were a bad team that was in the hunt for the 1st pick in the draft through half the season. The only reason you can look back and think they might have been a playoff team is because Gase pulled Sam's head out of his ass and kept the team together after they were clearly one of the worst teams in the league, comparable to the Bengals and the Dolphins.
There are many different types of backs in the NFL. You have the quick hitters who move to the line of scrimmage, where the hole is supposed to be and try to slip through. You have the power runners who run between the tackles, putting their helmet down and looking for contact. You have the fast guys who try to get around the corner and will turn up field as soon as they see a hole materialize if that happens first - they do not like contact and tend to go down quickly when they get hit. Then you have the guys who spend a lot of time in the backfield waiting for their blocks and riding their linemen down field. Bilal Powell is a lot of the first and a bit of the second above. He was fairly well suited for Gase's system given that he pass blocks fairly well, runs decent routes and has ok hands. Leveon Bell pass blocks well, runs good routes and has excellent hands. No problems there. However he is the fourth case above. He needs a good to great line to ride if he is going to be a plus player. He can be a very good player in the right circumstances but without his OL winning battles consistently at the LOS he is pure garbage. There was little reason to conclude that Bell would prosper behind a bad OL in a system that prefers to have north-south backs with an occasional Jet Sweep to pressure the edge of the defense. In fact he was the worst kind of back to hand Adam Gase in his first year with the Jets. That he was a very high-priced addition with the expectation that he'd get the commensurate workload that goes with those kind of numbers was just shit frosting on a poorly baked cake. Suggesting that Gase should have changed his system to accommodate a running back just doesn't begin to address what happened last year. A failure in design of the roster that had been going on for years was suddenly exacerbated by throwing a guy into the mix that had no chance to succeed in the new system and no chance to stand on the sidelines because of his contract. It was pure sabotage by Mike Maccagnan to go get Leveon Bell as one of his prized acquisitions last year instead of building the line and finding another WR for the young QB he spent a high-first and three second round picks to draft. It's impossible to grade Adam Gase's system after a season in which his OL sucked and was injured and his QB was ill for the first 6+ games - missing 3 of them - and his star RB was of little to no value due to the OL being of little to no value. That's why I have no idea if Gase is a good coach or a bad coach. It's why I have no idea if his system is good or bad. The only thing I know for sure about Gase at this point is that he got unlucky as hell last year and somehow the Jets wound up 7-9 anyway. That's my glimmer of hope for this year. If the Jets had moved on from Gase after last season, bringing in a new guy with a new system, I'd be pretty sure we were headed for 4-12 again. So for me at this point one of the main reasons I have hope going into 2020 is that Gase and Darnold will get a reboot with a good front office making plans for them to succeed. It's not a lot but it is hope.
Lose to 1 winless team is bad enough, but two? How often does that happen? They looked like shit both games, poorly prepared.
The Cowboys lost to a winless team in week 5. The NY Jets. The NY Jets in the first 8 weeks of the season arguably put the worst 53 man rostered team in the NFL on the field.
What's your point? The Jets lost to two winless teams. Plus the Cowboys missed the playoffs by a single game and lost 4 of their last 6 (including to the team who passed them in the standings). Not exactly a great compare.
Honestly if the Jets defense remains near top 10, you’d have to take your chances of improvement from last year with another year of Sam and most likely a much improved OL just based off talent alone.
Forged by fire. Win, lose, or draw, facing the toughest teams this season will forge the NY Jets going forward. The Jets will be battle tested going into 2021. We will have faced nearly ALL the top teams, many on the road, and there will be NO question about how good or bad the Jets truly are. This season is already messed up and the best season to face the top teams. 2020 is setting us up for a SB run in 2021. Forged by fire. We will be a better team in 2021 with a fluff schedule compared to 2020. Buy your SB tickets NOW!
My point is the Jets missing the playoffs by a single game was a miracle. The Jets had one of the worst rosters in the NFL. When the team got reasonably healthy and still sucked, Gase got them to within one win of being a playoff team. We were not a playoff team. We were a shit team, among the worst rosters in the league. We have a young QB who was sick for the first quarter of the season and got ass raped because of the OL. In spite of that we won enough games to be just out of the playoffs. There are two sides of the coin. Gase is other a terrible coach or Gase is a miracle worker. My position is he did a relatively good job in holding the team and the young QB together under terrible circumstances. He brought stability to the organization by giving ownership another view of the shit job the GM was doing and he is now part of a competent management that will lead the team forward or he isn't. Time will tell. I'm looking forward to the team moving forward in a positive direction. Gase isn't going anywhere.
Actually it had NEVER happened in NFL history: https://www.espn.com/blog/new-york-...ets-as-a-bad-team-masquerading-as-a-contender
I think it's both. Sam's a bright kid, but one doesn't master a system in one year, particularly when one is sick and misses several games. Sam should feel more comfortable in the system, be more confident, and will be more free to be creative and think about adaptations to plays and the system, changing play calls at the LOS, etc., whereas last year he was just learning the system and working to execute it properly, get the correct timing, and understand all the concepts. Understanding the concepts mentally is one thing, but one doesn't truly grasp them until one starts putting them into practice on the playing field. Gase should have a better understanding of Sam's thought processes, what he likes to do, should have a better understanding of how to use Bell and the RBs, and should even be able to add some plays, change some plays based on the talents of Mims, Perriman, and maybe Doctson, and having Herndon back in the lineup. Also, having an NFL-quality OL should greatly help Gase with his play calling and play design, as the execution should be a lot better once the OL timing and chemistry gels.
