According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, Johnson is expected to "remain patient" with Gase despite the consistent, and at times, brutal calls from the fanbase for Gase's ouster.The Jets want to judge Gase over a larger body of work instead of relying on just eight games.
Logically, the Jets are well within their rights to wait. Making a coaching change in-season improves nothing, and would only create a bigger cloud of uncertainty about the organization.
Keep in mind there are a lot of factors that side with Gase when it comes to the embattled coach keeping his job.
1) General Manager Joe Douglas is a confidant of Gase.
Gase wanted Douglas to come to New York, and Christopher Johnson acquiesced to that demand. The two men have known each other since their days in Chicago and are long time friends. Unless Douglas is secretly going behind his friend's back, these two guys are going to be tied at the hip, which when you consider the recent history of the Jets, would be the first time in a long time by a head coach and general manager. And that leads to point number two...
2) Firing Gase would mean Johnson is creating an cloud on instability about the organization, which would make the Jets look incredibly unattractive to top flight coaching candidates. You want Mike McCarthy or Lincoln Reilly, Jets fans? Shake things up now and botch it up in the process, and you can forget about it.
Since the Jets fired Eric Mangini in 2008, they have tried to shoe-horn a general manager and head coach together and it hasn't worked out.Yes, Mike Tannenbaum and Rex Ryan got along well, but the fun lasted only two years before the fiascos of 2011 and 2012. When the Jets fired Tannenbaum, they decided to keep Ryan, which was a horrible mistake.
Woody Johnson tried to put a square peg into a round hole by fitting Ryan with John Idzik, who really wanted his own head coach. The result was a colossal failure, and both guys were fired two years later.
Then the Jets brought in Mike Maccagnan and Todd Bowles at the same time. Neither guy knew each other well before being hired by the Jets. To their credit, Bowles and Maccagnan tired to work together, even if they disagreed on some personnel moves. Ultimately it was a failure as Bowles was fired last January.
After the Bowles firing, the Jets made the mistake of keeping Maccagnan, letting him handle free agency and the draft before kicking him out the door six months ago. Now we have Gase and Douglas.
The Jets are unstable. They need stability.
3) Firing Gase could negatively impact Sam Darnold. If you are in the camp like I am that Gase is having a negative impact on Darnold, then you probably don't care if they have to get another coach in here to work with the young quarterback. But the fact is asking a 23-year old kid to adjust to three different head coaches and three different offensive schemes in three years is a heady task. If Darnold is the quarterback of the future he needs stability.
4) Woody Johnson is coming home in 12 months. According to Pro Football Talk, the Jets principal owner is coming back from his four-year stay in England next November, regardless of the 2020 Presidential election. Johnson has been overseas as the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom since Donald Trump took office.
When Woody's brother, Christopher made the hire of Gase, and later Douglas, he told reporters that this was his decision and his alone without Woody.
How much influence Woody still has on day to day operations is anyone's guess. I am sure he still has a pulse on the franchise, but if the Jets were to fire Gase now and hire someone else, would that coach be someone Woody would want when he gets back? What if Woody wants to fire that "new" coach when he returns? We don't know where the Jets will be a year from now, but the instability in the owner's box doesn't help matters either.
So if Jets fans really want Adam Gase fired, it's going to take a lot more then losing games for that to happen, otherwise the domino's are slowly lining up favorably for his return in 2020.
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