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Joe Namath on Jets head coach Adam Gase: 'He can give his players the best chance to win'

Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath praises New York Jets head coach Adam Gase for his close to 2019.

After a 1-7 start, there was plenty of talk that Adam Gase might not even make it through his first year as head coach of the New York Jets. Instead, the Jets bounced back with a strong close to the season and suddenly, Gase’s team has momentum heading into the 2020 season.

And while Gase is still among the most popular picks to be the first head coach fired in the NFL this season, he seems to have quieted much of the negative talk around him and the Jets. A 6-2 finish in their final eight games was undoubtedly the reason why his critics were at least temporarily silenced. Gase spent three season prior to the Jets as head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Before that, he was offensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos for one of the most prolific offenses in NFL history.

Joe Namath, still the only quarterback to lead the Jets to a Super Bowl, thinks Gase did a good job in his first season in the NFL. The Jets open the season this Sunday at the Buffalo Bills.

“I like watching him down here when he was in Miami when he was the coach and the quarterback and offense he has worked with prior to that. He’s a versatile coach, he can improvise and give his players the best chance to win,” Namath told Sports Illustrated’s Jets Country.

“The players are the ones who have to execute. Last season, he wasn’t dealt a real good hand with injuries coming out of the box and all. I’d like to think the last eight games, winning six of the last eight games, was excellent. I think that’s what is going to help these guys in their start this year. They are going up against a team in Buffalo that is really good.”

It won’t necessarily be easy for the Jets to improve on their record from a year ago. They have the second-toughest schedule in the NFL this year and will need to blend together four new starters on the offensive line without the benefit of any preseason games.

But the Jets do have a better roster and they are a team that showed signs of life last year despite a difficult start to the season. At the end of the day, this is still a rebuilding project and one that is likely a year away from making this team competitive.

Namath remains highly involved with fundraising and getting attention for the Joe Namath Foundation, which supports numerous children’s charities as well as being active in raising funds for neurological research. In addition, last year, he wrote his critically-acclaimed autobiography, All the Way: My Life in Four Quarters that is available in hard copy and audiobook.