Did Adam Gase take Jets play-calling duties? His answer was confusing
Nov 29, 2020, 7:30 PM
New York Jets head coach Adam Gase watches play against the Kansas City Chiefs in the second half of an NFL football game on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
The New York Jets have had a no good, very bad season, and many of their problems in the 0-11 start have been self-inflicted.
Another perplexing one emerged Sunday after the loss to the Miami Dolphins.
There is now not only a question of why the Jets run the plays they run, but who is choosing to run such plays.
Before the game, Chris Mortenson reported that head coach Adam Gase was going to take play-calling duties from offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains.
During the game, some Jets reporters kept their eyes on the situation. After it ended, one of them asked Gase about the change. Gase denied any alteration. The reporters, who Sporting News said was ESPN’s Rich Cimini and Connor Hughes of The Athletic, pressed him on it, leading to this exchange:
Adam Gase vs @RichCimini part 892
— NYJ Matt (@NYJ_Matt) November 29, 2020
Gase: “I didn’t take over — we’ve done this same thing the last four games.”
Cimini: “We were watching Dowell through the whole game. He wasn’t doing anything. He was just standing there.”
Gase: “He tells me. It’s not hard. This is not hard. You go through it the drive before. ‘Hey, these are the three plays.’ I do the third downs.”
Even if that is true, that is an odd answer. Gase says that Dowell tells him before the drive which three plays they want to run when they’re on offense.
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That presents some questions, the main one being why the Jets are only planning to run three plays every single drive.
Gase was asked about that.
Hughes: “So what happens after the three plays? Cause we were watching one where Dowell was talking to [offensive line coach] Frank Pollack. He wasn’t calling the plays. You were.”
Gase: “What part of the game was it?”
Hughes: “I want to say that it was the third quarter.”
Gase: “Yeah, when we got down, then I was trying to do some of the two-minute stuff.”
Making matters weirder (or, providing more evidence to a potential lie) is that Loggains wasn’t carrying around a play sheet, according to Jets Wire writer Sam Neumann.
Loggains didn’t have a play sheet with him the entire game. What are we doing here? https://t.co/Pmlzi4u3sW
— Sam Neumann (@Sam_Neumann_) November 29, 2020
So here’s what we can speculate happened based on all the information provided: Gase wasn’t calling the plays, until the Jets got down, at which point he started calling two-minute-type plays. Before this, Loggains was feeding him plays instead of telling them to the players directly, and only telling him three plays, regardless of whether one gained different yardage than expected and regardless of if drives went longer than three-and-out, and that nothing had changed over the last four weeks.
Actually, given that this is the Jets and that they are 0-11 coming off a three-point performance … maybe this answer actually does make sense and is not a lie in any matter.
