A farewell to Gase: As end in New York nears, a look at his legacy with Dolphins, Jets

Soon enough, Dolphins fans, you won’t have Adam Gase to kick around anymore.

For five years, Gase has been a flash point locally.

Beloved when he arrived in 2016 and won right away.

Cursed when things went against him the next two seasons.

Loathed and mocked in New York ever since.

Sunday in North Jersey will probably be the last time Gase — who by all accounts is nearing the end of his short time with the Jets — will face the team that gave him his first head coaching opportunity.

Last — not just with the Jets, but perhaps as a head coach in the NFL.

Franchises usually don’t rush to give a twice-fired coach a third chance.

Perhaps in a decade or so, an older, more experienced Gase will convince someone that his record as a head coach — 30-45, including the playoffs, through Week 11 — was not truly representative of his ability.

Gase points, with justification, to injuries as a factor for his fate. He has had his starting quarterback available for just 30 of his past 62 games. That would probably doom even the best coaches.

But injuries alone don’t explain away an offense that has consistently ranked among the league’s worst, an offensive line that, regardless of the personnel, cannot protect well enough and a 10-game losing streak to open the 2020 season.

And it doesn’t explain his inability to permanently change a culture of losing, first in Miami and then in New York.

“I’m the same guy,” Gase told the Miami Herald this week, when asked if his confidence has wavered after four consecutive seasons with a losing record. “I know there’s probably all three of you guys [on a conference call with Miami media] thinking me giving up play-calling was insanity for me to do that. But just trying to find the best way for us to do well as a team. Spend more time with special teams and defense. Being able to see the big picture. Whatever we needed to do to find a way to win games. That’s what I care about at the end of the day. What do I need to do to help our team win?”

He better answer that question quick. Ignominy looms. The Jets need to find a win somewhere during the last six weeks of the season to avoid becoming just the third 0-16 in NFL history. That won’t be easy. A case could be made that Sunday at home against the 6-4 Dolphins is the most winnable game left on New York’s schedule.

The Jets still must host the Raiders and Browns and play on the road against Seahawks, Rams and Patriots. They have the second-hardest remaining schedule in the NFL (.617, behind only the Falcons).

A winless season would be a professional setback almost impossible to overcome. Rod Marinelli hasn’t come close to getting another shot since going 0-16 with the Lions in 2008. Hue Jackson, the coach of the winless 2017 Browns, isn’t in the league anymore.

For whatever shortcomings he has, Gase isn’t on that level. He’s still relatively young (42), he’s smart, he has plenty of contacts around the league and, most importantly, is still the only Dolphins coach since 2009 to lead the team to the playoffs.

The Dolphins fired Gase — and hired the much different Brian Flores — after the 2018 season because they knew half measures and patchwork roster moves were a failing vision.

But they also fired Gase because they didn’t think he was the right man to lead their team through a painful transition.

“I don’t think it’s ever about one person, not in football at least,” said Flores, who has consistently gotten more out of a Dolphins roster that, even in Year 2 of its rebuild, has major flaws. “I think it’s about a collection of people — ownership, head coach, GM, assistant coaches, players, equipment. It’s a team game on the field. Honestly I think it’s a team game from an organizational standpoint, as well, so I think we need leadership from everybody.

“I don’t ever think it’s about one person,” he continued. “I think once you start going down the ‘one person is the end-all be-all,’ you just can’t. One person can’t do everything in a football organization.”

That’s all true. But it also misses a broader truth: The CEO of any company sets the tone. He lays out a vision, he hires people to execute that vision and makes the tough, and often unpopular decisions.

Flores made probably the most unpopular decision of his young career last week when he benched first-round pick Tua Tagovailoa for performance in the fourth quarter of a game whose outcome was still in doubt.

“Coach Flores is a very passionate — he’s very passionate as a coach and he’s very disciplined as a person with the things he does,” Tagovailoa said. “I would say as a team, the more success we have, in a way the guys start to kind of lay back a little; but that has never been the case while I’ve been here with Flo. We never change anything, and the recipe to success is how we go out and practice every day. With his philosophy, you’ve got to work hard to go out and be successful.”