Adam Gase may be right but he isn't helping the Jets rebuild

Now 1-7, the New York Jets are in a downward spiral. The message from the coaching staff is to continue together, an idea that is increasingly getting lost through their own ineptness. This is a team that simply isn’t built to be anything more than chum in the shark-infested world of the NFL.

The numbers from the Jets 26-18 loss at the Miami Dolphins on Sunday show a team that is sloppy, lacking discipline and frankly, splintering apart. The Jets are a poor team in terms of talent and their coaching situation doesn’t seem to help matters or elevate things.

Head coach Adam Gase, in his first year with the Jets, is saying all the right things as the totals in the loss column continue to mount. But this team needs more than platitudes.

It needs an infusion of talent, something that Gase can’t say without throwing his locker room under the bus. This faux-Bill Belichick routine is not only not genuine but insulting to the pain currently being felt by Jets fans.

“It’s just more about we’ve got to focus on ourselves, really at the end of the day, it is us playing well on Sunday,” Gase said.

“We’re shooting ourselves in the foot too much. The penalties are just – it’s just not good. We can’t have 10 penalties for 100 yards, we’re just hurting ourselves.”

The Jets have had an unusual year.

From firing their general manager in the summer after the NFL Draft and much of free agency had concluded to Sam Darnold’s mono and a string of injuries that have decimated both sides of the ball, the Jets have not exactly set themselves up for success. This all doesn’t necessarily fall on Gase, who had his own quirky addition to the Jets offseason with a bizarre introductory press conference.

But at this moment in time, he must do more than simply spout off trite sayings that could be found in the weight room of a high school gym. The results, especially losing to a previously Miami Dolphins team, is unacceptable.

And Gase must sound that frustration. Instead, he’s dodging responsibility, both for himself and his team. By downplaying losses like the latest one on Sunday, Gase is stunting a rebuild that would always be painful but needn't be insulting of Jets fans.

Sunday hurt. It stung. It was embarrassing. Instead of embracing and admitting that his team underwhelmed, Gase's kumbaya routine is growing tired and trite.

Saying on Sunday that he "isn’t embarrassed by s--t" - this most embarrassing of losses - Gase signaled that the anger and hurt that is part of the Jets fan’s DNA isn’t coursing through his veins. Perhaps his apathy and lack of acknowledgment that this game and this defeat hurts might just be the worst part of the Jets loss in Miami.

He didn’t get it on Sunday after the game. And what might doom Gase to being one-and-done with the Jets is that he hasn’t gotten it or understood it to date.

Gase must be angry, he must be embarrassed by this loss. Throwing slogans out at the cameras lined against the back of the press conference only shows that he is tone deaf to the hurt of another rebuilding process for this Jets franchise.

“These guys are good guys, these guys work hard,” Gase said.

“I watch them at practice, these guys, they try to do things right. They hate going through this. They don’t want to go through this, they don’t want to lose games. They want to come out here and win. We’ve just got to play better.”

All of which may be true but Gase not only has to coach better but also lead better. Part of what this team needs right now is a head coach unafraid to hold the players accountable, who is willing to build up but also tear apart.

Gase’s shtick of ambivalence, acting like he is the smartest man in the room after a humiliating loss doesn’t help the Jets in their rebuild. Instead, burying his head in the sand to this team’s faults is making him increasingly less likely to be the Jets head coach when the team stops rebuilding and is in actually a position to start winning.