Few entered the 2020 season with hotter seats beneath them than Adam Gase, and he did nothing to throw ice on it as the year rolled along. The New York Jets suffered another disappointing (read: embarrassing) season with him at the helm, but despite the floundering, general manager Joe Douglas insisted he and Gase were in it for the long haul. Apparently, that's not the case, with Douglas and the Jets expected to fire Gase following the conclusion of the 2020 season, as reported earlier by CBS Sports NFL insider Jason La Canfora.
Gase attempted to mount some sort of momentum at the back end of December, leading the team to two consecutive wins, but it was of little consequence, considering they had already lost 13 in a row. And the consequence garnered wasn't a pleasant one, as it pushed the Jets out of the No. 1 spot in the 2021 NFL Draft, locking them in at No. 2 and giving the Jacksonville Jaguars the road aimed at consensus top-overall pick, Trevor Lawrence. Gase joined the Jets in 2019 after spending three seasons as the head coach for the Miami Dolphins, and ends his career in New York with a combined record of 9-22.
That mark will either change slightly for the better or worse with one final game to play before he reportedly gets the ax.
Gase has long topped our CBS Sports list of hot seat rankings, and for a list of growing reasons. Some of the more prevalent stem from run-ins with star players, headlined by All-Pro safety Jamal Adams All-Pro running back Le'Veon Bell, both of whom either directly and/or indirectly fired shots at everything from Gase's leadership to his play calling. Both have now been traded away, but that expectedly made the Jets worse than before, and the regression of former first-round pick Sam Darnold also hangs like an albatross around the neck of Gase.
Tasked with developing Darnold to make him the future of the franchise, the second year in that marriage has been marred with poor play by the young quarterback -- not ideal for a head coach thought to have a sharp offensive mind and one that speaks well to improving quarterbacks.
And then there was Gregg Williams, the now-fired defensive coordinator who indirectly sparred with Gase earlier this season over the ineptitude of the offense as it related to requiring too much of a defense that now lacked Adams. That boil came to a head in December, when Williams called a Cover Zero blitz against Derek Carr and found themselves on the receiving end of a walk-off touchdown against the Las Vegas Raiders. Gase was reportedly stunned at the call when it came over the headset but didn't have a chance to stop it, in what became yet another chapter in a book that will now be closed as early as Monday.
Where Gase and the Jets go from here, respectively, is anyone's guess, but this isn't what the organization expected when they sent Todd Bowles packing and brought in what they believed was a promising mind out of South Florida.
Gase is now 32-47 as an NFL head coach, and looking for a new job.
