This is Adam Gase’s big chance.
Go beat Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. Set MetLife Stadium afire on “Monday Night Football” and send the Patriots out into the night with their first defeat.
That is how you turn New York into Adam’s Apple.
The football gods ambushed Gase, cruelly conspired against him when he started on the Jets sideline. Lost his franchise quarterback. Lost his defensive quarterback. Lost his first four games. Lost an impatient portion of his cynical fan base.
But all is not lost.
The Patriots have the inside track on their 11th consecutive AFC East title. And that’s the last thing that Gase and the Jets should be thinking about Monday night.
Beat Belichick and Brady, and use the upset as a launching pad for a season that would finally be lifted off the ground.
Beat Belichick and Brady, and get to 2-4 and Gase can restore the faith of those who welcomed him as the offensive mastermind who would be just what the doctor ordered for Sam Darnold.
Beat Belichick and Brady, and the fact Gase’s record with Darnold as his quarterback would be 2-1 would at the very least offer a ray of hope this could get to be a marriage made in heaven.
Even after Kaare Vedvik, even after the Luke Falk Era, the Jets did not fracture. Of course, you don’t get yourself a float through the Canyon of Heroes for keeping your locker room unified.
When everyone could easily have referred to him as Coach Machiavelli after his power-struggle triumph over Mike Maccagnan, Gase correctly told us: “If we win games, nobody’s gonna remember this.”
Then the Jets choked away a 16-0 lead to the Bills in the home opener, then Darnold contracted mononucleosis, then C.J. Mosley’s groin betrayed him, then Odell Beckham Jr. got the last laugh on Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, and it would get worse before it would get better.
It finally got better when Darnold and his spleen left their sick bed and cured much of what ailed Gase’s 1-4 Jets.
It can get a whole lot better if Gase can beat Belichick and Brady.
Gase was brutally honest when he pointed the finger at himself at a time when Williams and special teams coach Brant Boyer were doing their jobs with their units.
Gase, with an offensive line in severe flux, figures to have more of a problem against the Patriots’ No. 1 defense than Williams, who welcomes Mosley back to quarterback his defense, will against Brady, who misses Antonio Brown more than Robert Kraft does and would undoubtedly let Rob Gronkowski stay at his home should he decide to unretire.
“We’re such a work in progress right now,” Gase said on his conference call with New England writers.
That was one of several quotes from Gase last week that make you wonder whether he is playing possum or readying an excuse:
“The hardest part of being in a first-year program is you’ve got two phases that are completely new. The guys are trying to learn the details of everything, and sometimes it doesn’t happen as fast as everybody wants.”
And this one, answering a question about the Patriots defense:
“For me, when I look at these guys right now, it looks like a group that they’ve played together, they know exactly what they’re doing going into the game, they know what they’re looking to stop, they know exactly how to play off of each other. I think they have some really good chemistry going on, to where some of that might be those guys playing together for a few years now. When you’ve got guys that aren’t thinking, and they’re communicating and they’re able to play fast, it makes it really hard on the offensive side.”
Belichick will make it hard on Le’Veon Bell. Which will make it harder on Darnold. Which will make it harder on Gase.
“To paraphrase Wayne Gretzky,” Christopher Johnson said, “he’s coaching to where football is going.”
Will it be going to 2-4, or 1-5. Johnson’s Gase is as good as yours.
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