Jamal Adams Trashes the Jets and Says Adam Gase is Not the Right Leader' for the Team
Source - The surreal saga between the Jets and Jamal Adams might be coming to an end.
Seven months after Adams capped off an All-Pro season that vaulted him into superstardom, general manager Joe Douglas has told one of the game’s most dynamic players that he is open to trading him before the start of the season. ...
The News has uncovered details of how Douglas made a series of bizarre decisions that created a cavernous divide between the organization and their biggest star. ...
Douglas’ curious communication coupled with Adams’ eroding relationship with head coach Adam Gase created a tension that bubbled to the surface. The News first reported last month that Adams had requested permission to seek a trade before citing that Gase was one factor why the two-time Pro Bowler felt uncomfortable with his long-term future with the team.
“I don’t feel like he’s the right leader for this organization to reach the Promised Land,” Adams said. “As a leader, what really bothers me is that he doesn’t have a relationship with everybody in the building
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“At the end of the day, he doesn’t address the team,” Adams added. “If there’s a problem in the locker room, he lets another coach address the team. If we’re playing sh---y and we’re losing, he doesn’t address the entire team as a group at halftime. He’ll walk out of the locker room and let another coach handle it.” ...
Meanwhile, Adams waited to receive the initial proposal that Douglas promised in January. ... However, the conversation in early May took a bizarre turn.
Rather than make a first offer, Douglas said that the team wanted to table contract talks until next offseason. In the meantime, the powers that be wanted to monitor Adams to see if he was all-in with the Jets and all-in with football. The GM wanted Adams to prove his loyalty to the franchise.
Pardon the length of that excerpt but trust me, that's just the tip of the shitberg that is the New York Jets, according to arguably their best player since Darrelle Revis. And I'm referring to the Darrelle Revis of his prime, not the Darelle Revis who fleeced them of $39 million guaranteed and then decided it was a good time to start avoiding tackles.
Dive deeper into the article though and you'll get an even clearer understanding of that dysfunctional family circus in Hempstead.
Let's start with Joe Douglas. Listen, I appreciate as much as anyone how messy contract negotiations can be, especially in football. I have a blood-soaked altar where I make ritual sacrifices to the God of Tough Contract Talks, and by appeasing him, he has built me an empire. But it's one thing to take a veteran and offer him a below market deal or only offer two years to even the greatest player in league history because you're hedging your bets he can still play when he's 45. This is Jamal Adams, a guy who's the heart and soul of the franchise and still years away from his athletic prime. There's trying to leverage the best deal out of him you can, and then here's waiting until May to even begin talking and open with you're "monitoring" the situation like he's got a string of bank robberies on his rap sheet or you're testing his "loyalty" like you're the fucking House Committee on UnAmerican Activities searching for Commies.
But that's burying the lede. The real money shot is this insider's look at Adam Gase. This business of him noping out of the locker room when the team is playing like garbage and letting some assistant handle the mess just seems like Peak Gase. He's Michael Scott, trying to get Jim to lay someone off or Dwight to make budget cuts because he's not man enough to handle the tough stuff.
And the fact Gase won't communicate with his players is weirdly ironic, since, during his first draft in New York, he wasn't the one being put on the phone every time they called one of their selections. Mike Maccagnan was the GM then. And he kept putting position coaches on the line with his picks.
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Which was clear and convincing evidence of a power struggle between Gase and Maccagnan, which Gase won. But he hasn't gotten any better at communicating with his players. Something that has not gone unnoticed with a competitor like Jamal Adams who expects better. But I guess when you're 7-9 with your current team and 20-28 over your last three seasons, your own record says, "I'm not equipped to handle this job" louder and clearer than any locker room speech ever could.
The rest of 2020 might all be an upside down, inside out world. But at least we can lalways count on the Jets being The Goddamn Jets.