Adam Gase won the power struggle in the New York Jets’ front office. What it means for the franchise going forward, including a possible silver lining.
Adam Gase was 23-26, officially, as Miami’s head coach.
Unofficially, Gase is 1-0 with the Jets, even though the regular season still is months away.
Gase won the internal power struggle in the team’s front office Wednesday when acting owner Christopher Johnson fired general manager Mike Maccagnan. Gase was named interim GM four months after claiming he was OK with not having final say on personnel matters (a perk he had in Miami) and five days after denying multiple reports of a serious rift between him and Maccagnan.
Vice president of player personnel Brian Heimerdinger also was let go.
Let’s just say this whole affair is not a good optic for the Jets or Gase. Johnson’s statement, not surprisingly, shed little light on the matter.
“This morning, I informed Mike that he was being relieved of his duties as general manager of the team, effective immediately,” Johnson said. “Mike helped to execute the strategic vision of the organization during the last four seasons and especially the past few months. However, I came to the decision to make a change after much thought and a careful assessment of what would be in the best long-term interests of the New York Jets. I will start a search for our new general manager immediately.”
Of course, none of that addresses the obvious, that it seems pretty bizarre, even for a franchise with as dysfunctional a history as that of the Jets, to allow its general manager to run free agency and the NFL Draft before kicking him out the door less than three weeks after the draft ended.
Yes, it certainly could be argued that Maccagnan should have been gone long before this, given the fact that the team had just completed three consecutive losing seasons when coach Todd Bowles was let go hours after the season finale. I wrote here that Maccagnan, despite a spotty record, should be retained partly so that he could help choose a new coach that he, presumably, could co-exist with.
Clearly, that didn’t happen.
It’s likely that, in the coming days, Gase will tell the media he had nothing to do with this, but it will be a tough sell if he does that. What will make it even tougher a sell is if the next “permanent” GM of the team turns out to be Joe Douglas, currently Philadelphia’s vice president of player personnel.
