Adam Gase’s Jets will beat Broncos on Thursday and quiet rumors that he’ll be fired

Adam Gase should have champagne on ice in his office for a Friday morning celebration.

He might be Dead Man Walking for the NFL’s tin-standard franchise, but he’s coming home a winner, for at least one week.

Gase’s discombobulated bunch will beat the winless Broncos in what promises to be a Thursday night snooze-fest.

Lock it up.

For all of the Jets' shortcomings, they’re facing an injured-ravaged opponent with 11 players on IR, including their starting quarterback, right tackle, future Hall of Fame pass rusher and perennial Pro Bowl defensive tackle.

Someone named Brett Rypien (position: quarterback) isn’t riding in on a white horse in primetime to save Vic Fangio’s club. Truth be told, Denver would be better off trying to win its first game of the season with a 60-year-old John Elway than a 2019 undrafted third-stringer who was elevated from the practice squad last week.

Sure, the 0-3 Jets are the only team never to have led for a single second in any game this season. And yes, Gang Green has a league-worst minus-57-point differential in three non-competitive losses.

But the Broncos are simply too short-handed in pivotal areas to win their first game despite backing from Vegas oddsmakers. Ryan — who replaced Jeff Driskel, who replaced injured starter Drew Lock — isn’t scaring anyone. His first career start will go as expected.

Gase & Co. have plenty to prove, but facing what amounts to a jay-vee squad should boost their confidence.

The Jets' miserable play has put more heat on their mercurial head coach in recent days with speculation running rampant about whether the end is near. A FOX Sports report surfaced this week that the Jets have reached out to at least one coaching agent to discuss possible head coach candidates to replace Gase at some point.

A team spokesman denied to ProFootball Talk Tuesday that CEO Christopher Johnson has talked to coaching agents.

The organization took a similar public stance during the final weeks of Todd Bowles' tenure. The Daily News later reported that Johnson had indeed met with Kliff Kingsbury’s agent at his New York apartment while Bowles was still the head coach.

Sources also told the News during the end of Bowles' tenure that a long-time Johnson confidante/advisor, who isn’t technically a Jets employee, was reaching out to agents on prospective head coaching candidates. It gave the organization plausible deniability since someone not employed by the team was doing the early leg work.

A Jets spokesman didn’t respond to the News for comment on the FOX Sports report.

Regardless, Gase shouldn’t concern himself with the noise.

“I can’t focus on that,” Gase said Tuesday. “It’s wasted energy for me. It’s not going to help me at all. All I can do is make sure I get our guys in the right head space to go out there on Thursday and play well. It started [Monday] night with our meetings…. That’s got to be my focus. If I waste my energy on anything else, it’s just counterproductive to what we’re trying to do.”

That sounds all well and good. But it’s time to deliver.

Gase, the architect of the undisputed worst offense in the NFL, has no other choice. His job is to find solutions for his team’s many problems for as long as he has the job.

Gase’s offense ranks last or next-to-last in total yards, points, passing, first downs, touchdowns, third-down conversion rate, red zone, yards per play and most punts per play. The Jets are 28th in rushing.

It’s a smorgasbord of slop.

Although Gase isn’t the lone culprit for this mess, he’ll be the fall guy sooner or later.

“By now people know not… I mean, I just don’t respond any of it,” Gase said about not wanting to hear the scuttlebutt about his future from friends or family. “If somebody tries to tell me, I’m like, ‘I don’t [inaudible]. It doesn’t help me. It doesn’t do anything for me.’”

That’s the right approach. Gase should fight any impulse to go down that rabbit hole, especially during a short week in a game that is clearly winnable.

“Guys have been doing a good job of being encouraging with each other,” Gase said. “Talking about how to clean things up. Talking about what we need to do to fix things. I think guys are trying to figure out the little details of like where are we going wrong? How can we fix this?”

“I like the fact that guys are looking for solutions instead of just bitching and complaining and not really working in the right direction. I feel like our guys are looking for the right things, looking for the solutions to the problems.”

Gase insisted that players are “pissed” after getting embarrassed in every game. General manager Joe Douglas said a variation of that before Week 1 when external expectations were pretty low. The team responded by turning into a laughingstock through three games.

There’s also some delusional framing of reality when reviewing the Jets' three losses.

“We’re right there in a one-score game and something happens to where we let it avalanche on us,” Gase said. “That’s the point of the game where we got to put a stop to.”

The truth is that the Jets have been trailing by at least two scores 70% of the time.

Gang Green fell behind by two scores — and never got closer — 12 1/4 u00bd minutes into their season-opening loss to the Bills. They fell behind by two scores — and never got closer — 20 minutes into the Week 2 loss to the 49ers.

They got in a two-score hole — and never got closer — 21 1/4 u00bd minutes into their blowout defeat in Indianapolis last week.

In all, the Jets have only been tied for 18 1/4 u00bd of the 180 minutes of game time this season (10%).

The numbers might be ghastly, but Gase is facing the exact right team at the exact right time. He should party like it’s 1999 after his first win of the season Thursday night.

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