Is Adam Gase Secretly a Genius, Saving His Job by Having Assistants Worse Than Him?

I mentioned this earlier in the week. How Colin Cowherd - and say what you will about him and his sources, he had Tom Brady going to Tampa Bay before anyone - reporting that if the Jets lost the Thursday nighter to Denver, that Adam Gase would be fired. Well as I write this, it's lunch time on Friday. The Jets lost a terrible game at home to an atrocious 0-3 team. And Gase is presumably having his Oodles of Noodles at his desk at Jets HQ and preparing his next abysmal game plan for Arizona, who'll likely be 3-1 by then. 

And here's where I think Gase is secretly a genius. I believe that he is saving his job in the most clever, diabolical way imaginable. By surrounding himself with assistants as bad if not worse than he is. Consider the defensive coordinator that everyone just assumes would be the guy to take over once Gase is finally put out of his misery, Gregg Williams. 

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It's a little hard to call a guy into your office to talk about a promotion, look over his resume, and not notice his defense has allowed the most points in the league. Or ask about that last entry where his defense just gave up 37 points to a team that was averaging 15 per game going in. Led by Brett Rypien, no less. An UDFA in his second year who still put up 242 against you with two touchdowns. 

Add to that the fact penalties by Williams' squad gave the Broncos an incredible seven 1st downs, with no less than six personal fouls including those two roughing the passer calls. That's the most 1sts created by penalties in the league in over a calendar year. A gift like that deserves a nice Edible Arrangement with a hand written card from a team like Denver that's having their own issues.

I mean how do you give a battlefield promotion to a guy like that? You can't. And there's no point in even bringing up the Jets OC because he's a figurehead and it's all Gase's offense producing the lowest numbers in the NFL across the board. So Gase has sort of made himself unfireable by surrounding himself with minions actually as incompetent as him. It's like if the admirals Darth Vader was always choking out for failing him had captains working under them who were all Porgs and Ewoks. (I'm not making the lazy, obvious reference here. I leave that to lesser writers.) At some point Lord Vader would say "You've failed me for the second to last time" and keep them on, just because he had no other options. That's what Gase has done.

If I'm a Jets fan - and I am on my surgically repaired knees thanking my maker I am not - I hate the fact you have no alternative. As a non-Jets fan, I'm elated Gase will be there until the end of the year probably. But as a fan of Machiavellian strokes of brilliance, I admire the hell out of it. He's crazy alright. Like a fox.