But for the moment, it appears that any coaching change won’t come until after the season ends.
“They really don’t want to do it,” one source said. “They may have to, at some point. But they know a midseason coaching change doesn’t change their situation. I think they’re going to hold off as long as they can.”
There are some good, logical reasons for holding off, too, based on conversations with people inside and outside of the organization:
- Midseason coaching changes rarely do anything in the NFL, and at 0-6 and facing a tough schedule it really won’t matter for the Jets. They’d need a miracle just to get near .500 at this point, and they don’t appear to have the talent for that.
- Though the Jets aren’t “Tanking for Trevor” Lawrence, the Clemson quarterback expected to go No. 1 overall in the 2021 draft, Douglas is surely cognizant of the importance of a Top 5 pick. That takes away some of the urgency to fix the Jets’ problems this far into a lost season and could make them wary of any small bounce a coaching change could give them.
- With no fans in the stands and no tickets to sell, there really is no outside pressure. If fans had been in the stands to boo or chant “Fire Gase” and, more importantly, tickets had gone unsold, Gase might already be gone. But the pandemic has created sort of a cone of silence around Jets headquarters, as long as no one turns on talk radio on their way home.
- Gase is a lightning rod, and there are some outside the organization who think this is a big factor. All the heat right now is on him, which takes the pressure off what increasingly looks like a poor offseason and shaky first draft by Douglas. It also distracts from the sticky situation Johnson created by essentially letting his coach have a hand in choosing the GM.
- Who would replace him anyway? The obvious choice had always been defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who certainly has the respect of the defensive players. But he’s a volatile personality and his thinly veiled shot at the offense last week reminded everyone of that. The last thing the Jets would want is a coaching change that leads to more chaos.
Of course, all those reasons might not be enough to prevent an in-season coaching change if, one morning, Johnson wakes up screaming “Enough!” But if he didn’t do that after the loss to the winless Broncos three weeks ago, or after the Jets' 24-0 shellacking in Miami last Sunday, maybe he won’t. The Jets already have lost five of six games by 10 points or more (and the other one by nine), their average loss this season is 31-13 and they have one of the worst offenses in the NFL – again.
Yes, things could always get worse and there’s no guarantee the Jets are at rock bottom. But for the moment, the pain tolerance of Gase’s bosses appears to be high enough to buy him some time.
