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Adam Gase fell on sword
“I came here to help Sam Darnold, help him develop his career, and we haven’t been able to do that,” Gase said on Thursday. “That’s why these next [five weeks], every game’s so important to keep trying to help him grow, keep trying to help him develop and see things the way that he needs to see them and play the way that I’ve seen him play in certain games. We need to do things well around him, but at the same time, it’s on me to get him to play better than what he’s played. So far I haven’t done a good enough job.”
I agree and disagree with Gase on this one. Two different points need to be made here.
Darnold struggles reading defenses. It was a problem and it is a problem with the Jets. There is very little Gase can do about that. It’s very hard to help a QB see the field better. With so many guys, you can go over it ad infinitum in meeting and in practice, but then when the game starts, they look across the line, and it’s a struggle with all the complexities of the opposing defenses. Practice and meetings aren’t the same as when the real bullets are flying.
“Here is the thing – the scouting report on [Darnold] as a quarterback (coming out of college) was it was hard for him to read defenses and it kind of played out when USC played Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl, when he was sacked like 8 times,” said Gil Brandt on SiriusXM NFL Radio after the Jets-Denver game. “Sometimes people just can’t read defenses and it’s some [good quarterbacks]. It’s a talent some people possess and other people don’t.”
So I don’t blame Gase for not helping Darnold read defenses better. What I would blame him for is that he’s not as good as a Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan at masking the quarterbacks shortcomings with consistently brilliant first-read calls.
“The Rams are a team that requires their offensive play-caller, Sean McVay, to be on his game, each and every week,” said former scout Bucky Brooks on NFL Network. “Their quarterback doesn’t have the ability to bail him out when the plays aren’t necessarily correct against the defense.”
There are so many Rams and 49ers games where the offensive play-calling is so brilliant, that it overcomes the QB. McVay and Shanahan got teams to the Super Bowl this way, but unfortunately for each of those teams, they ran into great defenses in their respective Super Bowls, and needed more from each QB, and didn’t get it.
So if there is a criticism of Gase, it’s not that he hasn’t helped Darnold read defenses better, which is almost impossible to do, but that he hasn’t been McVay and Shanahan-like in his ability to help his QB overcome it . . .
Right tackle George Fant (ankle, knee) looked good running around and blocking during the limited time the media has at practice, and looks like a guy who has a good chance at playing this week.
It looks like Pat Elflein will start at left guard for Alex Lewis, who didn’t practice again today.
It looks like the Jets are taking to slow with Lewis, who had some kind of incident last week with a teammate or coach, and perhaps getting him some counseling.
Look, we all know these are very tough times for many people, and football players aren’t immune for the suffering that many are going through. People are on edge. That goes without saying. 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan told his players to keep on eye on teammates, and if you see issues, please tell him or another coach.
“I just try to tell everyone, no matter what, when someone has a problem, whatever it is, there’s no problem too big or too small,” Shanahan told reporters Thursday. “A lot of guys keep that stuff internally, but I met with a bunch of the players and I grabbed about 20 of them last night and just told them to look out for that stuff and make sure that whether they come to me, a position coach, we have lots of people here who aren’t coaches or players who can help people.
“I just try to stress to people is everyone’s going to be at different levels and some people are going to deal with this different than others.”
December 4, 2020
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