Adam Gase Bluntly Sums Up The Jets’ Offense In 2019

Adam Gase’s first season as New York Jets head coach wasn’t exactly a banner one, though there were some signs of life as things went along. The team finished 7-9 on the season, winning six of their final eight games.

Third downs were an especially problematic area for the Jets offense last season. On the year, the team converted just 30.7-percent of the time on third down, a mark that ranked 31st in the NFL out of 32 teams, only ahead of a particularly inept Washington Football Team.

In the first eight games, three of which the team was without starting quarterback Sam Darnold, the Jets were just 23-of-101 on third down. That included an 0-for-12 outing against the New England Patriots. They only had more than three successful third down conversions twice in that stretch. Gase was asked about those struggles specifically, and didn’t sugarcoat how bad things were offensively in 2019.

“It was absolutely atrocious, everything last year,” Gase said during a presser. “You can just throw out all that. All the stats were terrible.”

“We have to be better on first and second down. We have to avoid negative plays. When we do put ourselves in third-and-seven or less, we have to execute,” Adam Gase continued, outlining goals for a pivotal 2020 season. “We gotta make sure we have the right protections. We gotta get the ball out on time. ”

He does see some light at the end of the 2019 tunnel though. Things picked up in the second half last year, and he already sees significant development within his team heading into year two with the franchise.

“When you look back at it now, their knowledge now compared to what it was when we were playing last year… it’s so much different, to where guys are like ‘Why would I do that? I should’ve just did this and I would’ve got the first (down).’ That’s part of the growth, and it’s frustrating when you’re going through it, and when you do as poorly as we did that first half of the season, it just crushes you for the whole season, but there was so much positive turnaround. We had really good games, and we had good conversions. We had better first and second-downs. We just gotta make sure we do that earlier in the season this year, and are consistent throughout the year.”

The New York Jets have a tough test out of the gates this fall. The team travels to the Buffalo Bills, maybe the favorite in the post-Tom Brady AFC East, on Sunday. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. ET.

[SNY]