New York Post - USA (2020-12-03)

New York Post, Thursday, December 3, 2020

nypost.com

Pulling off

repeat of

’19 will be

challenge

By GreG Joyce

The Jets caught the Raiders by

surprise last year, beating them

34-3 to send their season into a

tailspin.

Jon Gruden is ready to make

sure it doesn’t happen again this

Sunday.

“I don’t think I need to say

much,” the Raiders coach said

Wednesday on a conference call.

“All you do is turn the film on,

they got after us in all phases. I

got a lot of respect for their

coaching staff. [Defensive coor-

dinator] Gregg Williams and

[Adam] Gase have given us

problems before. I don’t need to

say much else.”

Last year’s win over the Raid-

ers was part of the Jets’ second-

half resurgence, with Sam Dar-

nold throwing for 315 yards and

two touchdowns and running for

another score — the kind of of-

fense that has been sorely miss-

ing this year. Gruden pointed to

the injuries and lack of continu-

ity on offense hurting the Jets

this season, but said he knows

what Darnold is capable of.

“We compare the Jets to

what we saw last year, they

got after us pretty good,”

Gruden said. “We got a lot of

respect for them.”

➤The surprise benching

of Alex Lewis against the

Dolphins is carrying over

into this week. The left

guard did not practice

Wednesday, but Gase still

wasn’t willing to divulge

what the non-injury issue was

or predict whether he would

be active against the Raiders.

➤RT George Fant (knee/

ankle) did not practice

Wednesday after sitting out

all of last week.

LB Blake Cashman (ham-

string), who played 12 snaps on

special teams Sunday after miss-

ing the last three games, also did

not practice.

➤Gase didn’t sound optimistic

that safety Bradley McDoug-

ald, who has been on injured re-

serve since Oct. 31 with a shoul-

der injury, would play again this

year.

“I don’t see him coming back

anytime soon,” he said.

JETS NOTES

T

HE JETS are five weeks

away from cratering out.

They are five weeks away

from the end of the worst sea-

son in franchise history for a

team that has had some doozies.

But how long will it take for

the Jets to return to relevance?

How long will it take for general

manager Joe Douglas to rebuild

a roster with very little talent?

When can Jets fans hope for an

end to this playoff drought that

is a few years away from be-

coming a teenager?

To get the answers to these

questions, we decided to

look back at the teams who

have been in similar situa-

tions to the Jets. There are

not many. With the Jets

now 0-11 and four of their

final five opponents pos-

sessing winning records,

let’s assume they go 0-16.

They would be the third

team in NFL history to

reach that dubious dis-

tinction.

So how do they

measure up with

the 2008 Lions

and 2017

Browns, who

both went 0-16,

and how

long did it

take

those teams to climb out of the

abyss?

The Jets are scoring fewer

points (13.8 per game) than ei-

ther those Lions (16.8) or those

Browns (14.6). The Jets are al-

lowing fewer points (29.3) than

the Lions (32.3) but more than

the Browns (25.6). So the three

teams are similar.

Let’s see how these Jets com-

pare and what happened with

those teams through a few dif-

ferent lenses and what those

teams did to rebuild:

HEAD COACH

Jets fans desperately want

coach Adam Gase fired and it

looks like a certainty at this

point. He is 7-20 in his two years

with the Jets and his offense is

going to be the worst in the

NFL for the second straight

year.

Interestingly, none of the

coaches who presided over

the 0-16 seasons was fired

during the season, and it

appears Gase won’t be either.

The Lions fired Rod Marinelli

after the 2008 season and re-

placed him with Jim Schwartz.

Hue Jackson actually survived

the 2017 season. You think

Gase’s record is bad? Jackson

went 1-31 in his first two years in

Cleveland. Jackson was fired in

the middle of the 2018 season

and replaced by current Jets de-

fensive coordinator Gregg Willi-

ams. The Browns subsequently

hired and fired Freddie Kitchens

before hiring Kevin Stefanski

this year.

GENERAL MANAGER

Douglas is safe. The Jets only

hired him 18 months ago and he

has positioned the team to be

able to make moves in 2021 with

nine draft picks and close to

$100 million in cap space.

The Lions fired their general

manager Matt Millen after

Week 3 and hired Martin May-

hew, who presided over the re-

build. The Browns fired Sashi

Brown in December 2017 and

hired John Dorsey, who got to

benefit from Brown’s stockpil-

ing of draft picks. Dorsey was

fired after last season.

QUARTERBACK

One common theme among

all of these teams is drafting a

quarterback No. 1 the following

year. The Jets appear to be on

their way to taking Clemson

star Trevor Lawrence next

spring.

The Lions took Matthew Staf-

ford out of Georgia with the No. 1-

overall pick, and while he has

not led them to a Super Bowl, he

is the team’s all-time leading

passer. The Browns moved on

Brian Costello

MATT

MILLEN

HUE

JACKSON

BUMPY RIDE:

Regardless of

whether Adam

Gase, Joe Douglas

or Sam Darnold (top

right) remain, the

road back to success

for the Jets appears

to be a long one if

the team finishes

0-16. The two most

recent winless

teams, the 2008

Lions and 2017

Browns, needed

three more seasons

before becoming

respectable again.

N.Y. Post: Charles

Wenzelberg (3);

Robert Sabo