Broadway Joe
Well-known member
- Mar 19, 2019
- 1,992
- 0
Getty Images
The best gig in sports media is the radio host, for a variety of reasons. One key reason is this: The radio host can become a reporter from time to time, without the accountability that goes along with it.
If the radio host who breaks news is right, the radio host gets to take a victory lap. If the radio host who breaks news is wrong, the radio host can say that the radio host was merely passing along what the radio host heard from an otherwise reliable source.
That’s currently relevant because a radio host broke the news this week that, if the Jets lose to the Broncos, New York coach Adam Gase will be fired. (Not could be or may be or would be or should be but will be.) The Jets lost to the Broncos, and Gase wasn’t fired.
But, hey, the radio host was merely passing along what the radio host heard from an otherwise reliable source.
The broader question is whether an in-season coaching change will happen for the Jets, eventually. Look at the schedule. The Jets will be the underdogs in every game they play until their Week 11 bye (Arizona, at Chargers, Bills, at Chiefs, Patriots, at Dolphins). If they lose the next six games and enter the bye at 0-10, what happens?
“I know we’re working to get this thing right,” Gase told reporters after the game when asked to explain what he’d say to fans who want him to be fired now. “I mean, I’m not happy about this. I mean, I know we can play way better than this. I know we can not beat ourselves and do the things we’re doing.”
Gase inherited a horrible roster, one that G.M. Mike Maccagnan was haphazardly building from the outside in, not the inside out. G.M. Joe Douglas has tried to change that in his relative short time on the job. It will take more time to make that happen.
That said, rebuilding doesn’t provide a blank check to be non-competitive. The Panthers are rebuilding, and they’ve played well every week. In the NFL, a rebuilding is more like a remodeling; you’ve got to be able to live in the house while the improvements are happening.
Currently, the Jets’ house is uninhabitable. At some point, that won’t be sustainable. Whether it’s at the bye week or at the end of the season, something better than what the Jets have done needs to happen over the course of the next 12 games or the Jets could be changing contractors for a remodeling project that could result in owner Woody Johnson returning from the United Kingdom and plunging a detonator on the entire structure.