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There was a major announcement this week regarding Jamal Adams trade demands . . .
“The Daily News has learned that Adam Gase is a major factor why Adams has felt uncomfortable with his long-term future with the team and requested a trade,” announced Manish Mehta in the Daily News on Tuesday. “The News first reported last week that Adams sought permission to seek a trade after no movement toward a contract extension this offseason. Adams’ discontent runs much deeper than simply finances. The Jets’ best player does not want to play for Gase anymore for myriad reasons, according to sources.”
This begs the question – What took so long for this angle to rear its head?
If this was a major reason for Adams wanting out, why did it take until June 23 for this nugget to be leaked by the Adams’ camp?
Remember, it was all the way back on April 17 that Mehta announced that Adams would skip the the team’s virtual off-season program. And all reports at that time said it was because he wants a new contract.
So if Gase was a major reason he wanted out, why did it take over two months for this to come out?
Doesn’t that seem a seem a little odd.
That is a pretty significant factor to me left out for two months.
Is is possible that after trying a bunch of other clubs in their bag, they decided to play the Gase card?
I have to admit, being around the team all of last year, during Gase’s first year coaching the Jets, I never sensed that Adam’s had a problem with him. There were no obvious clues.
This came out of left field.
Perhaps the Adams’ camp, perhaps with some nudging from a surrogate, decided to go down the Gase road.
Fair or unfair, Gase is low-hanging fruit. You go after him, you are going to curry favor with a lot of fans. The Twitter link to Tuesday’s story about Adams not liking Gase got 498 “likes.”
A number of commenters liked the concept of Gase being the problem.
“Just get rid of [Gase], doing everyone a favor, and make (Gregg) Williams the head coach SMH,” tweeted Derrick Jordan.
SMH is “Shake my head.”
Remember, things hadn’t been going that great for Adams in the court of the public opinion recently. Remember when he told a Dallas fan, he’s “trying” to push a trade to the Cowboys?
“BuckJets98” tweeted about this story: “Crying Jamal.”
Joe Pugliese added: “I’d send him to Cincinnati or Jacksonville or Detroit – let him rot.”
So from PR standpoint, why not play the Gase card? What do you have to lose?
But the writer went beyond the Gase-Adams relationship in his column.
“The prevailing sentiment in Gang Green’s locker room is clear: Players don’t respect Gase, who has rubbed them the wrong way with his inability to lead and lack of support,” Mehta wrote.
Look, I’m no special-pleader for Gase, who clearly needs to win this year, but I never sensed the locker room turning against him. Hey, surely there were a few players that didn’t like him, but you never got the sense there were myriad players who didn’t like the coach.
“They would not have rallied to 7-9, with a 6-2 finish, if that was the case.,” said one long-time New York football writer. “Whatever you think of their schedule lightening up, they didn’t quit.”
This writer also wonders, like we did, why did it take some long to blame Gase as the reason Adams wants out?
“Why did it take so to blame Gase when this story was going on for a while,” said the scribe. “Why so late? This almost like a Hail-Mary pass.”
June 25, 2020
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