The Jets hired Adam Gase to be an offensive innovator and turn Sam Darnold into a franchise quarterback. Through eight games in New York — and throughout his career — however, Gase has proven to be the total opposite. His offense is stale and ineffective and the Jets sit near the bottom of the league in almost every offensive statistic.
But this shouldn’t be a surprise. Gase rarely fielded competent offenses during his three years as head coach of the Miami Dolphins and one year as the offensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears. Gase earned his reputation mostly when he coached the Broncos offense with Peyton Manning, but he hasn’t been able to bring those numbers with him outside of Denver.
With the Jets now 1-7 and the offense sputtering, here are five stats that show Gase came to Gang Green falsely advertised.
Record as a head coach
Gase joined the Jets with a sub-.500 record when the Dolphins fired him following his second consecutive losing season. His record has only gotten worse in New York. Gase is 24-32 in his 3.5 seasons as a head coach and lost his only playoff game in 2016. Since Week 10 of 2018, he’s 3-12.
Believe it or not, Gase can actually even his coaching record if the Jets win the final eight games of the 2019 season. We won’t hold our breath.
Double-digit loses
Gase’s teams don’t just lose games, they typically get blown out.
Twenty-four of his 32 career losses have been by 10 or more points. Yes, that means he has just as many double-digit losses as overall wins.
If you break those double-digit losses down even further, it’s somehow worse. Gase has lost 34 percent (19) of his games by at least 14 points, 27 percent (15) by at least three scores and 20 percent (11) by at least 20 points.
Yikes.
Poor Quarterback Play
Gase hasn’t shown himself to be a quarterback whisperer anywhere he’s coached since 2015. Granted, his quarterbacks after Peyton Manning have been Jay Cutler, Ryan Tannehill, Brock Osweiler and Sam Darnold, but that shouldn’t have stopped someone heralded as a genius.
His quarterback’s DVOA (Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average) has dropped every year since 2015, and only Cutler, in 2015, finished with a positive DVOA. Gase-coached quarterbacks also turn the ball over a lot. Every quarterback except Cutler in 2015 finished with a higher interception percentage per passing attempt than the league average, and Cutler finished just under the average that year.
Offensive rankings without Peyton
Gase has gotten credit for Peyton Manning’s record-setting success in Denver, but once Manning retired the coach’s offenses plummeted. Gase’s teams often ranked near the bottom in points and yards, and he’s never coached an offense that finished higher than 17th in points and 21st in yards since he left the Broncos for the Bears in 2015.
On average, Gase-coached offenses have ranked 25th in points, 27th in yards and 26th in passing yards. Those are pretty lowly numbers for someone labeled as an offensive genius.
Abysmal scoring
Gase-led offenses can’t do the one thing they’re designed to do: score points. Since 2015, Gase’s teams scored on 25.12 percent of their drives, compared to the league average of 36.16 percent over that same span.
If your team can’t put up points, it’s tough to win games. His bad scoring numbers are likely a huge reason why Gase typically loses by double-digits.
