New York Jets Head Coach Adam Gase Has Nothing but Praise for Denver Broncos Head Coach Vic Fangio

On Thursday night, New York Jets head coach Adam Gase will face the Denver Broncos, an organization where he spent six years as a member of the staff under former head coach John Fox.

Beginning in 2009, Gase spent four seasons as the Broncos wide receiver coach before becoming their offensive coordinator in 2013. His two seasons in that position saw him work with Peyton Manning to create one of the most prolific offenses in NFL history.

Gase has special memories of the organization and Vic Fangio, now the Broncos head coach. Fangio and Gase overlapped for a season in 2015 when Gase was the Chicago Bears offensive coordinator.

Fangio was the Bears defensive coordinator. Last season was his first year as head coach of the Broncos.

“Especially him, I mean Vic, he’s tough enough to go against as it is, schematically, because of what he does. It was horrible playing him in practice because there’s a bunch of stuff that I’m sure some of those guys have never even done yet because maybe they’re not there yet,” Gase said this week in a virtual press conference.

“But he was tough to go against in practice, it made us better. I know it made us better coaches because he was doing a lot of things that I hadn’t seen too often at that stage in my career. And every time I’ve played him, it’s always been challenging because there’s always something a little different, there’s a little different wrinkle, there’s something he takes away that you’ve got to make an adjustment to. He’s a fun guy to call a game against because it’s really hard and you’re working for 60 minutes for sure.”

The Jets and Broncos are both 0-3 heading into Thursday night. The Broncos record is excusable: Thursday night they will start their third-string quarterback after starter Drew Lock injured his shoulder in Week 2.

But the winless start heading into Week 4 is a surprise for the Jets. After an offseason of rebuilding the team, it was thought this team would be further along. Consecutive blowout wins, however, have spawned recent reports that Gase’s job might be on the line heading into this showdown against his old team.

“It’s something, I can’t focus on that. 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 headspace to go out there on Thursday and play well,” Gase said. “And it started last night with our meetings going over: here’s how we’re going to play this game, here’s who is available to us, go do our walkthrough, do the same thing today. We’ve got so much stuff we’ve got to get in over the next two days to get ready to play this game, 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.”