Rebuilt New York Jets offense faces the obstacle of gelling in shortened training camp

Due to the fallout from COVID-19 and the restrictions in place on NFL teams this offseason, the New York Jets are just coming together as a team for the first time last week. An offensive unit that showed progress last year and has several new projected starters on the line and at wide receiver, must come together quickly.

Still, the Jets retooled the offense and offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains thinks there’s still plenty of opportunity still to put a competitive offense on the field this 2020 season.

“I’m from Texas and we have a saying there, “We’re fixing to find out”, and we’re fixing to find out, because I know this, we got better today and that’s all we can really control and that’s been the message of coach Gase is to take this thing one day at a time and be where your feet are and be in the moment,” Loggains told reporters Wednesday over a Zoom call. “We have an awful lot of improvement that we need to make especially in the quarterback room and offensively, but we took a step in the right direction today.”

Loggains is entering his fifteenth season as an NFL coach, serving as either an offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach since 2010. Its his second season with the Jets but he’s worked with Jets head coach Adam Gase in their stints with the Chicago Bears and Miami Dolphins.

Gase doesn’t have the opportunity to use the preseason to work out the kinks that naturally arise when new players are being implemented into an offensive system.

“Coach Gase is definitely up for the challenge of being able to have unscripted periods and be able to use the coach-quarterback communicator with Sam and the other quarterbacks,” Loggains said. “You don’t have those four preseason games to get ready but you have more practice time and you have more meeting time, so there are some advantages in some ways that normally you have to say, ‘Hey, we have to start getting ready for a game,’ and now it’s, ‘Hey we can focus on our practice before and watch that tape and grind the technique.’ I’m sure Adam will get really creative on if he decides to have scrimmages and tackles in practice, all those things that head coaches get to choose to do.”

Loggains believes quarterback Sam Darnold is poised to take another step forward in this his third NFL season.

“The biggest thing I see with him is command, he can speak with more confidence. I saw it the last eight games of the season. When you go back look at our first eight games, there were things that were good, but there were a lot of disappointing moments for us obviously and our record said that and we missed Sam those three games,” Loggains said. “But the last eight games of the season you could see Sam taking strides and doing things the right way and starting to learn the protection, starting to learn. We’re going to have some new wide receivers in this thing, and he is responsible for them, just like the coaches, to make sure that they know what to do and they’re prepared when we play Week One.”

Another key part of the Jets offense in 2020 will be running back Le’Veon Bell. The Jets added veteran running back Frank Gore to add depth but it is Bell who wants to rebound from a disappointing 2019.

“Le’Veon obviously has a unique skill set because he is a three-down back, there are lot of things he can do,” Loggains said. “Number one, we need to play better around him. We need the other 10 guys to do their jobs and play well. Lev is a guy in the second year of the system, if you talk to him about this, we know his skill set better, whether it be in the passing or running game.”