Coming into their Week 5 game against the Cardinals’ Adam Gase’s Jets already displayed among the most inept offenses on a regular basis — that’s why they’re 28th in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted efficiency metrics. But Gase is a competitor, and he clearly wanted to get a new level of offensive ineptitude going. Having backup Joe Flacco as his starting quarterback while Sam Darnold deals with a shoulder injury? Well, that helps. Having Gase call your plays? That always helps, too.
The Jets punted on each of their first three drives, and the immediacy in which they executed the first two punts set an NFL record that goes back to at least 1994, per Pro Football Reference.
The Jets are indeed the first team in our play-by-play database (complete to 1994) to punt twice on 4th and 1 in the first five minutes of a game https://t.co/8HinjvmbPT
— ProFootballReference (@pfref) October 11, 2020
Which led your intrepid analyst to post his favorite Gase-related GIF.
Obligatory Flying Taco Moment https://t.co/qPzlZqTP4v pic.twitter.com/WBgOh71khs
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) October 11, 2020
Still, the Jets weren’t done thinking of stinking. On their next drive, Gase called a misbegotten TE/FB cutback thing on third down from the Arizona 13-yard line that gained no yardage, and then, instead of taking the points, the call was to hand the ball to Wesco AGAIN… which led to an unsuccessful fourth-down conversion, and the Cardinals taking over at their own 13-yard line.
Give the Cardinals credit — they wanted to be hospitable hosts. Four plays after taking over on downs, Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray threw an interception to linebacker Avery Williamson, who returned the ball to the Arizona 10-yard line. The Jets responded with a drive in which Flacco underthrew receiver Jeff Smith on second down, overthrew Smith on third down, and at that point, even Gase had to admit defeat with a successful 26-yard field goal from kicker Sam Ficken.
We will leave the traditional questions about Gase’s continued employment to our weekly Power Rankings, because that’s become a tradition. But when you have a supposed offensive genius running an offense this bad? Well, we do continue to wonder.
