Content available exclusively for subscribers
They hung out a lot talking football philosophy . . .
Sometimes when people talk about the Adam Gase/Joe Douglas relationship, you sometimes get the feeling that these guys have known each other forever.
But that really isn’t the case.
They only worked together for one year (2015) in Chicago.
“It seemed like a lot longer,” Gase said during the press briefing on June 5 that wasn’t broadcast anywhere.
But that one year, they spend a lot of time together and talked a ton about football philosophy.
“We were around each other a lot,” Gase said. “We had a lot of conversations.”
One thing they got into during their long chats was the development of young players, such a key thing if you are going to build a top program in the NFL.
Most of these young players who come into the league from college need a ton of work – mentally and physically. For every player who comes in the league and is instant coffee like Indianapolis Colts linebacker Darius Leonard last year, most young guys need of ton of molding and mentoring. And if teams aren’t on top of that, they can waste promising prospects.
The old regime threw young guys into the starting lineup sometimes too fast, like Darron Lee and Nathan Shepherd, before they were ready, and you saw the results.
“I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with the playbook in 2016,” Lee told hosts Jim Miller and Pat Kirwan in the summer of 2017. “I couldn’t tell you half the terminology.”
So he started a rookie not knowing half the terminology.
You get the sense that this kind of haphazard handling of young players isn’t going to happen as much under Gase and Douglas.
“[We talked about] young guys – how to develop them,” Gase said about his his time with Douglas in 2015. “Make sure they were getting better throughout the year. How to set it up for next year.”
The way you develop young players is huge, and can make or break prospects, and Gase/Douglas clearly know this.
Gase feels that Douglas will be a huge help for him, a great sounding board, especially during the season when times can get tough.
“A certain time of the year (free agency and the draft), it’s really, really busy for them and during the season (when it slows down for a GM), they are the ultimate supporting cast that you have, so those are the guys you have to lean and talk through things and Joe is that kind of person,” Gase said. “He’s such an easy guy to connect with.”
Bill Parcells always got pissed at reporters who tried to characterize his mood in a question by saying something like, “Bill you don’t seem happy with what is going on.”
Manish Mehta, who perhaps fashions himself an amateur shrink, asked Gase at this press briefing after Douglas was hired – “Outside of the day you were hired, you seem happier now then you have been. Is that a fair characterization?”
He really didn’t answer the question.
Because it would throw more dirt on Maccagnan’s GM grave.
But it goes without saying that he’s thrilled to have Douglas in the building.
While Gase probably wants final say, if he’s not going to have it, he probably feels nobody better than Joe to have that control.
July 11, 2019
Premium will return by 9:30 pm on Friday.
