Former Jets Star Antonio Cromartie On Head Coach Adam Gase: 'Don’t See A Guru'

Antonio Cromartie is critical of Jets head coach Adam Gasen's developing of former players

Somehow, Adam Gase got dragged into the AFC playoffs this weekend, and the New York Jets aren’t even playing. 

Gase, whose Jets finished 7-9 in his first season as their head coach, was the subject of a Twitter thread started by Antonio Cromartie. A former cornerback of the Jets who played four seasons in New York beginning in 2010, the four-time Pro Bowl selection took to social media on Saturday night to question the rise of Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill this season.  

For three seasons beginning in 2016, Gase was the head coach of the Miami Dolphins where Tannehill was the starting quarterback. During that time, Tannehill missed a total of 24 regular season games including the entirety of the 2017 season due to an ACL injury. Tannehill didn’t have a ton of success in his partnership with Gase 

The timing of Cromartie’s tweet made sense on one hand, as Tannehill led the Titans to an upset of the New England Patriots a week ago in the AFC Wild Card Round. 

But Tannehill was just 7-of-14 for 88 yards with two touchdowns in the Titans  28-12 win at the Baltimore Ravens to advance to the AFC Championship Game, not exactly massive numbers. While this weekend wasn’t the greatest display by the quarterback, this season in 12 games played, Tannehill has 2,742 passing yards with 22 touchdowns and six interceptions. He’s clearly enjoyed a solid season, his first in a Titans uniform. 

Cromartie’s tweet brings to mind the issues surrounding Gase during the first half of the 2019 season. Questions of Gase’s impact on the Jets young franchise quarterback, Sam Darnold, swirled as the Jets endured a 1-7 start to the year and Darnold had several difficult outings. 

All those concerns subsided as Darnold rebounded from a tough start to the year and put together several sparkling performances as the Jets closed out the season with six wins in their final eight games. 

The timing of the tweets by Cromartie – this wasn’t exactly a great advertisement for Tannehill’s growth post-Gase – coupled with Darnold’s very obvious growth under Gase this season, likely makes this simply an interesting talking point of the offseason. Darnold grew this year, a testament to the second-year quarterback’s development under Gase. 

That, in and of itself, is worth celebrating for the Jets organization.