Bad Coaching in the NFL: Adam Gase, Pathological Doofus

The New York Jets aren’t going to win a single game, and Adam Gase still thinks he holds a competitive advantage. Heh.

Adam Gase is calling the plays again for the New York Jets. But Adam Gase does not want you to know that he is calling plays again for the Jets. And Adam Gase doesn’t know how to fool you into believing that he’s not calling plays again for the Jets.

Gase turned play-calling duties over to his longtime assistant and sock puppet Dowell Loggains a few weeks ago. Surprisingly, and probably not coincidentally, the Jets offense looked downright competent for a while, scoring 27 points against the New England Patriots and 28 against the Los Angeles Chargers despite the fact that Joe Flacco was subbing for Sam Darnold at quarterback.

However, Gase cannot abide being upstaged by a subordinate. So when Darnold returned to face the Miami Dolphins in Week 12, Gase was holding the play sheet and talking into the headset, Loggains was wandering the sideline chatting with players and other coaches, and the Jets scored six whole points.

The overwhelming evidence suggests that Gase was calling plays again, right? Well, Gase insisted that he wasn’t in a bizarre postgame exchange with the Jets media.

Here’s Ralph Vacchiano of SNY.tv with video of Gase claiming that Loggains tells him “three plays” at the start of a series that the Jets will execute, with Gase taking over for third-down play calling, as well as “some of the two minute stuff” when the Jets were trailing. “It’s not hard. It’s not hard,” a testy Gase says, sounding like a shifty, sweaty lawyer with hair dye streaming down his cheeks.

No, it’s not hard at all. Loggains calls a series of plays off the top of his head without a play sheet, then relays them to Gase instead of communicating directly to Darnold, except on third downs, and except in two-minute situations, which (watch the video again) now happen in the third quarter for some reason. Totally logical, efficient and 100 percent truthful, coach.

Gase must have been the sort of teenager who swore he was holding that stack of Playboys and collection of roach clips for a friend, and that he wrote “Property of Adam Gase” all over them to throw that friend’s super-strict parents even further off the trail.

Gase doesn’t want anyone to know that he called plays on Sunday because the Jets offense was terrible again, and because he doesn’t want anyone to think of him as an insecure control freak who feels threatened by an assistant’s success.

In other words, Gase doesn’t realize everyone except his employers has him pegged as an insecure and easily threatened control freak. He also hides the fact he lives the same way he calls plays: no subtlety, no guile, no recognition that he is not fooling anyone.

With Bill O’Brien and Matt Patricia gone, Gase now must shoulder the burden of being C’Mon Coach’s lone go-to fish in the terrible coaching barrel.

Thankfully, Gase looks ready to rise to the challenge for the rest of the year.

Kliff Chokesbury

Kliff Kingsbury is supposed to be the chad of the NFL coaching community: the daring and sexy young innovator who boldly seizes whatever he wants. But when his Arizona Cardinals faced the New England Patriots on Sunday, the journey to the sacred temple at Foxboro transformed Kingsbury into an ultra-conservative John Fox-like Punty McPuntface.

Kingsbury went for it on 4th-and-goal from the one-yard line on the final play before halftime. That was daring enough. But he sent Kenyon Drake crashing into the middle of the line behind a jumbo formation for no gain: no Kyler Murray option wrinkles, no Big-12 spread formation concepts, none of the things that make Kingsbury’s Cardinals so unique and dangerous.

Kingsbury later punted on 4th-and-2 from the Cardinals 48-yard line while leading 10-3 early in the third quarter. Andy Lee delivered a 34-yard line drive straight to Patriots stereotype Gunner Olszewski, whose 82-yard touchdown return was nullified by a penalty but still resulted in great field position and a Patriots field goal.

Kingsbury saved his most timid decisions for when the Cardinals got the ball near midfield after an interception late in the fourth quarter with the score tied.

Kingsbury called five nearly identical power running plays with one short (and deflected) pass sprinkled in, hoping to kill 4:27 in game clock and walk off with a game-winning field goal. His plan backfired when Zane Gonzalez’s 45-yarder sailed wide right and the Patriots got the ball back with good field position, 1:47 to play and one timeout remaining.

It’s important to note the Cardinals offense played well most of the game, but receivers kept not quite getting both feet inbounds after deep receptions or not quite crossing the plane on would-be touchdown catches.

The Patriots, as usual, had no downfield passing game whatsoever and were counting on the Cardinals to spot them great field position so they could muster 20 points. But Kingsbury, who was briefly a Patriots backup quarterback, coached like he removed his sandals before treading on the sacred Gillette Stadium turf and feared that the 2007 Patriots would appear at any time to blow his lowly Cardinals away. And his young team responded.

If the Cardinals hope to become serious playoff contenders, Kingsbury must learn how to not coach scared.

Weird Challenges

Kevin Stefanski has done an excellent job overall in his first season as the Cleveland Browns head coach. But he appears to still be figuring out this whole “challenge” business.

Tight end Harrison Bryant could not quite haul in a one-yard touchdown pass early in the fourth quarter on Sunday. To be clear: Bryant briefly had possession of the ball, but it bounced through the back of the end zone when he landed on the turf at the feet of an official, who had about as clear a view of the incompletion as humanly possible.

Also, it was 2nd-and-1, so the Browns had two more chances to punch in a touchdown with their world-class running backs. But Stefanski burned a challenge anyway. The replay official probably giggled when he upheld the ruling. Fortunately for Stefanski, Kareem Hunt scored on the very next play.

Stefanski later challenged the spot when Hunt’s knee appeared to hit the ground near the line of scrimmage before he dove forward for first-down yardage on 2nd-and-2. Stefanski won this challenge, except that the officials re-spotted the ball about 1.75 yards down the field, setting up 3rd-and-inches instead of a first down.

Baker Mayfield fired a 100 MPH fastball past Hunt on a short rollout pass, Hunt got stuffed on fourth down, and the Browns were out of challenges as the Jacksonville Jaguars mounted a mini-comeback late in the game.

Stefanski also had the option of kicking a field goal from the Jaguars 22-yard line to give the Browns an 11-point lead with 5:29 left to play instead of going for it on fourth down.

The Browns are Team Analytics, and C’mon Coach doesn’t want to fly in the face of prevailing analytics wisdom (which seems to be going for it is always always always always smart and anyone who disagrees is a stinky old fuddy-duddy, which doesn’t sound particularly scientific), but we’ll take a two-score lead against a third-string quarterback in the fourth quarter whenever it’s offered to us, thank you very much.

The Clock King

Andy Reid tried his best to mismanage the clock with just over four minutes to play in the 27-24 Kansas City Chiefs victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Luckily, Reid has Patrick Mahomes to save him from himself.

• Mahomes dropped to pass on 2nd-and-3, but he took off the moment he saw a small gap in the Bucs pass rush. Mahomes slid for a four-yard run that moved the sticks and kept the clock moving.
• Mahomes dropped to pass again on 2nd-and-6 with over three minutes to play, but he pirouetted out of danger in the pocket, rolled left, escaped for first-down yardage and plopped to the turf along the left sideline to keep the clock moving.
• Mahomes dropped to pass AGAIN on 2nd-and-9 after the two-minute warning when the Buccaneers were out of timeouts and two straight handoffs, plus a punt, would have burned the clock down to about 20 seconds. Mahomes immediately dumped the ball to Clyde Edwards-Helaire for a short gain to keep the clock moving.
• Finally, Mahomes dropped to pass ONE MORE DAMN TIME on 3rd-and-7, scrambled yet again, and found Tyreek Hill along the left sideline for a first down to ice the game.

Granted, calling three straight runs with four minutes to play would have been a fine way to punt the ball back to Tom Brady with too much time left. But Reid risked stopping the clock or suffering a catastrophic strip sack time after time with the game on the line.

Luckily, Mahomes mixed great plays with great decisions in a series that was as impressive and revelatory as any of his multi-touchdown sprees.

Don’t try this stuff with Mitch Trubisky, folks.

This Week in Mike Pettine

C’mon coach defies you to watch this first quarter run by David Montgomery and figure out what the Green Bay Packers’ defensive gap assignments are supposed to be.

As best we can tell, Kenny Clark is responsible for the backside A-gap between the center and guard, linebacker Kamal Martin and roughly two other defenders have the frontside A-gap, Z’Darius Smith has the C-gap and outside containment on his way to the quarterback, the B-gap has been purposely left open as an emergency aircraft landing strip, and linebacker Christian Kirksey is just there to observe and report.

In fairness to Kirksey, he appears to be shadowing Trubisky in case of an option, which is a logical assignment ASSUMING THERE IS NOT A GAPING FIVE-YARD CHASM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DEFENSE.

Eventually, the Packers will figure out how not to get gouged for 57 yards on routine zone reads. After all, teams have only been doing it to them for (checks notes) seven years.

Run the ball, Coach, Part I

The Las Vegas Raiders ran out of smoke, mirrors, good ideas and good luck charms in Sunday’s 43-6 loss to the Atlanta Falcons. They committed 11 penalties and five turnovers while squandering the many, many opportunities the Falcons handed them to climb back into the game in the first half.

But one third-quarter sequence of Jon Gruden play calls when the Raiders reached the 5-yard line while trailing 23-3 stands out as particularly misguided and futile:

• 1st-and-goal: A pressured Derek Carr throws to Henry Ruggs on a drag route at around the 2-yard line. Ruggs drops the rushed, slightly off-target throw.
• 2nd-and-goal: Carr is pressured when rolling out and bounces a pass in the general vicinity of Devontae Booker, who is well-covered at the one-yard line.
• 3rd-and-goal: A pressured Carr dumps the ball to Booker in the flat for no gain.

Three plays. Three pressures on Carr. Three throws in front of the goal line. Zero yards. One field goal. And no rushing plays. In fact, Josh Jacobs, who earlier used his helmet to send a Falcons defender flying off the screen Super Smash Bros style (Jacobs was penalized for it, but never mind) was not even on the field.

Gruden has reached the point in the season where he switches from outsmarting opponents to outsmarting himself. Fortunately, the Raiders face the Jets next Sunday, and Adam Gase will spend all week making an IHOP menu look like a play sheet for Dowell Loggains to fool Jets beat writers instead of game-planning.

Run the ball, Coach, Part II

Everyone knows at this point in the 2020 season that giving Mike McCarthy an opportunity to call a fake punt is like giving a Florida Man bath salts and a barn full of oily rags and old fireworks. And enough has already been said about McCarthy’s decision to call a low-percentage pass on fourth-and-short in the Cowboys 41-16 Thanksgiving Day humiliation at the hands of the Washington Team With No Name.

So let’s wrap up this edition of C’mon Coach with one of McCarthy’s less-publicized Turkey Day blunders.

The Cowboys reached the Washington 20-yard line with 43 seconds to play and two timeouts left just before halftime. Their full playbook should have been open. But here is what McCarthy called:

• 1st-and-10: a screen to Michael Gallup for one yard;
• 2nd-and-9: a shallow cross to Gallup (in fairness, this was a checkdown) for four yards;
• 3rd-and-5: another screen to Gallup for one yard.

The Cowboys then settled for a field goal.

Keep in mind that Amari Cooper had not only beaten Ronald Darby for a long touchdown earlier in the game but drew pass interference on Darby to get the Cowboys into scoring position on that very series. And $90 million running back Ezekiel Elliott had not yet coughed up his weekly fumble. So naturally, it was time to force the ball to the No. 3 receiver.

Play-calling shouldn’t be this hard. But coaches like McCarthy and Gruden find ways to make it overcomplicated.