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Remember the other day, when we got into . . .
. . . how smart it is for the Jets to promote the heck out of Joe Douglas the next few months, and stay away from focusing on the coach, since there seems to be quite a bit of acidity toward the coach out there, especially on social media.
It seems like whenever you mention Adam Gase on social media, some Jets fans snap like a piano wire. Fair or unfair, that dynamic is out there. We all know it. I will give you an example from yesterday.
The Jets put a link on Twitter promoting a story about how tight end Ryan Griffin went from a “pinch hitter to a special player.”
Fair enough. Sounds like a good story idea. Griffin certainly was a pleasant surprise for the Jets last year. He was brought it to fill a void during Chris Herndon’s four-game suspension, but along the way proved he can be a featured tight end, and earned a contract extension.
On the Twitter link to the story, there is a quote about from Griffin on how he and Herndon can do some good things playing together.
“When we are both out there I think it opens up the playbook that much more for Coach Gase,” Griffin said.
Oh-oh.
The last two words of that quote snapped some piano wire. You mention the coaches name now on Twitter, and you set some Jets fans off. It’s inevitable.
Yangry tweeted, “Both of them both also want Gase fired.”
Clearly, there is no evidence of that. You’d have to think Griffin likes Gase, since he had one of the best years until he got hurt late in the year and landed in IR. As for Herndon, it’s hard to know how he feels. He played just one game last year.
Badalamentin29 sarcastically added, “Gase’s playbook did wonders for the Jets last year.”
Santiago Bermudez also had issues with the playbook, and he even wondered if the Jets had one.
“Gase looks like he doesn’t even have a playbook on Sundays,” Bermudez tweeted.
We can assure you he does have one. We see players studying it all the time in the locker room.
Lefty Cam wondered on Twitter, “Why is Gase still the coach?”
Look, I don’t have a horse in the race. I cover the team, whoever the coach and players are. But the Jets have a big problem here, and need a masterful PR plan to get out of it.
Some might call the fans that tweet this anti-Gase stuff the “lunatic fringe” of the fan base, and claim plenty of other fans that aren’t saying this stuff. Over 500 people “liked” the tweet featuring the link to the Griffin story with the Gase quote.
So while it might not be every Jets fans who has an issue with Gase, if you don’t think the Jets have a PR problem with their coach, you are kidding yourself. Whether it’s fair or unfair, it’s out there.
And this might sound crazy, but I wouldn’t have run that quote on Twitter to tease the story. I would have just made it all about how Griffin was a surprise player last year, Make it all about Griffin.
Let things calm down with the coach right now. Don’t give fans low-hanging fruit.
But I’m fascinated to see what PR plan the Jets come up with to help Gase’s image.
You can say “winning” will fix it, but it goes deeper than that right now, and plus we have an entire off-season and training camp ahead, where you can’t win any games. That’s seven months of no regular season games from February-August.
PR guy Edward Bernays worked with President Woodrow Wilson and did something called “engineering consent.” He was considered the father of the modern PR movement. The Jets need to try and engineer consent, somehow.
February 7, 2020
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