Why Christopher Johnson Can't and Won't Fire New York Jets Head Coach Adam Gase Yet

The New York Jets have a tough decision to make with Adam Gase. But there is a reason why they haven't made a move on their head coach.

Patience is what is on Christopher Johnson’s mind, the CEO of the New York Jets choosing not to move on from head coach Adam Gase after an 0-4 start to the season.

Part of the reason why Johnson hasn’t pulled the trigger on Gase is likely due to the unique circumstances surrounding this team. The Jets have been hit hard with injuries, harder than most teams around the league. And with a roster that is still dangerously thin due to being in the midst of a dramatic rebuild, losing high-end talent can be devastating.

Considering that the offense is still a work in progress and the Jets have lost their top three wide receivers, an All-Pro running back and multiple starting offensive linemen ... well, the outcome is seen in this team’s dismal record.

So for Johnson, the time to rightly judge Gase, especially after a surprisingly solid 7-9 record last year, comes when he has something resembling a competent roster and not the subpar team out there. Especially with the number of injuries at the playmaker position.

The depleted roster is a point not lost on Gase when talking to the media on Friday.

“I think we’ve got a lot of guys that are coming back from IR and that were injured that are going to help us a lot. And our guys, they have to do a good job of sticking together and blocking out any outside noise and getting better every day in practice,” Gase said.

“I talked to all those guys today about fracturing is not an option. We’re four games in, we’ve got to do a good job of putting our head down, going to work, correcting the mistakes, fixing the stuff that’s absolutely non-talent based and doing those things right first and then your outcome is going to be different. But we’ve got to fix the things—the controllable stuff for sure, the non-talent things—we have to get those fixed immediately, and then we’ll see where that takes us.”

With a full roster—or something not quite as depleted—Gase can be properly evaluated. Is he the coach that exceeded expectations last year and had the team in the playoff hunt in December? Or is 0-4 truly indicative of his ability and last year was a stroke of luck?

But the blame for this year can’t solely rest on the injuries nor should it.

Gase does shoulder some of the criticism around the Jets' terrible start. While the team could definitely be more competitive, there is no doubt that they have been undisciplined as well as sloppy.

The Week 4 loss to the Denver Broncos came against a team that was 0-3 at the time and starting a rookie quarterback who was on the practice squad two weeks ago. This should have been a Jets win.

But penalties, 11 for 118 yards, killed any chance the Jets had at their first win of the season. That falls on Gase.

Flags have been a major issue for the Jets under Gase, now in his second year with the team. So too has been a team that has come out flat, seems confused on their assignments and unprepared in key moments.

While in many instances these aren’t the first-team players making these mistakes, it still is a poor reflection on Gase.

“Attention to detail, eliminating any non-aggressive penalties which are things that happen within a game, whether it’s holding on either side of the ball, those kind of plays on the ball where you get pass interference and things like that like offsides, false starts, roughing the passer, the things that we know that we can prevent from the officials having to throw a flag,” Gase said.

“Like when the quarterback is sliding, we’re not hitting him. Eliminating those things and then cleaning up the details of our coverages and pressures and our route running and our progressions and our blocking schemes. Just the smallest details are what makes the difference between winning and losing. We make a MIKE point, everybody being on the same page. And doing those little things, it’s just all it takes is one play throughout a drive and it can screw the whole drive up. That’s where we have to clean that stuff up.”