Should Quinn and Gase Be Fired?

Dan Quinn is a trendsetter. He sets NFL records, and his team’s performances create disbelief among NFL fans. Not in a good way, of course, and that’s why the Falcons coach is on the hot set and is the odds-on favorite to be the first coach fired in 2020.

Adam Gase isn’t far behind. While Gase’s accomplishments—or lack thereof—don’t inspire the same kind of wonder that Quinn’s exploits have done lately, it’s clear the Jets aren’t currently in good coaching hands with Gase at the helm. He also is in grave danger of being replaced.

So, let’s ask the question after Week 3, when it’s not even one-quarter of the way through the 2020 NFL season. Should Quinn and/or Gase get to keep their jobs for the rest of the year?

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

Me, I don’t enjoy calling for coaches to be canned, and I’m not going to do that in this piece. Quinn and Gase have families. Quinn and Gase are actual human beings with wants and desires and feelings. Quinn and Gase are good coaches. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been put in this position in the first place.

All of that being said, they’re in high-profile jobs where most employers eventually toss their employees out on the street.

First, let’s take the case of Quinn.

For the second straight week, the Falcons blew a 15-point lead in the final quarter and took a devastating defeat. It’s something that’s never happened before in NFL history. And if you go back to Super Bowl LI, when Atlanta lost a 28-3 lead to New England, that’s three defeats of epic proportions with Quinn in charge.

Falcons owner Arthur Blank nearly fired Quinn last season after the team started 1-7, but Quinn finished the year winning six of the team’s final eight games to save his job. And hey, at least Atlanta has had some success this year. After all, they had to build the leads they eventually blew.

The Jets, led by second-year coach Adam Gase, have been mostly terrible in every game, losing by 10 to Buffalo, by 18 to a beaten-up 49ers squad, and by 29 to Indianapolis. As the New York Post wrote,  At the very least, closing time is coming for the Jets’ embattled and universally unpopular head coach, who with every game he coaches is showing he’s simply not up to this job and was the wrong hire in the first place. The sample size for Gase is growing, and the results are not getting better. They’re getting worse. And that’s damning, always a prelude to a firing.”

Gase made his reputation as the offensive coordinator in Denver, where the Broncos had top-five offenses under his watch in 2013 and 2014. But he was mediocre as the head coach in Miami. Then, after moving to New York last year, the Jets were the worst offense in the league in yards and the second-worst in points scored. So far in 2020, New York is dead last in both categories.

So, what should be done? According to the Bovada online sports book, the odds that Quinn will be the first coach fired is 1 /2. Gase isn’t far behind at 2/1. I don’t expect either man to be shelved immediately, but remember this: Atlanta’s bye is in Week 10; the Jets in Week 11. If they’ve survived until then, it’ll seem like a miracle.

But New York guard Greg Van Roten made a good point on Sunday. Firing Quinn and replacing him with, say, offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter or canning Gase and moving defensive coordinator Gregg Williams into his head coaching spot probably won’t mean much to either team for this season, as far as wins and losses are concerned.

“To the fans that are calling for [Gase’s] head, I never really understood that,” Van Roten said, via the Post. “I was on [the Panthers] last year, we fired our coach [Ron Rivera after 13 games] and it’s not like we started winning games. You go further in the tank. So, I’m not really sure what that solves.”

And as Quinn proved, sometimes the hot seat provides a spark for an end-of-the-year comeback.

But if the Falcons keep blowing tremendous leads and the Jets keep playing painful football, neither man is likely to get that chance. At this point, they don’t deserve it anyway.

You get a fine! You get a fine! And so do you!: The NFL is not messing around with the issue of coaches not wearing masks. With the league trying to be as responsible as possible (or least have the appearance of doing so), it’s requiring coaches to wear face coverings on the sidelines. You’ve seen Kansas City’s Andy Reid and his fogged-up face shield. You’ve seen Bill Belichick’s strange contraption that barely covers his mouth and nearly covers his eyes. And you’ve seen Baltimore’s John Harbaugh lower his mask to yell at officials.

Harbaugh’s actions might get him into trouble, especially based on the fact the NFL fined three coaches (Denver’s Vic Fangio, San Francisco’s Kyle Shanahan and Seattle’s Pete Carroll) $100,000 a piece for mask violations. Their teams were also fined $250,000 by the league.

On Wednesday, the league doubled down on those measures. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the NFL sent out a memo saying that continued violations of the rules could lead to “suspensions and/or forfeiture of draft picks.”

Considering the Titans-Steelers game in Week 4 had to be postponed because of multiple positive coronavirus tests in the Tennessee organization, the escalation of NFL punishment for coaches not wearing their masks correctly can hardly be considered a surprise.

Denver trying out another QB: Though Fangio isn’t necessarily an immediate hot-seat coaching candidate (he’s only 14/1 to be the first fired NFL coach), he can’t be happy with Denver’s 0-3 start. So, he’s making a change, announcing that Brett Rypien will start on Thursday night vs. the Jets.

With starter Drew Lock injured, the Broncos signed former Jaguars starter Blake Bortles last week, but instead of using the former No. 3 overall pick or Week 3 starter Jeff Driskel, Fangio is going with Rypien, a second-year player who’s never taken a snap in a game.

“We’ve had a year and a second training camp and a couple weeks with Brett here and we think he deserves a chance to see how he can do as the starter, albeit on a short week of preparation,” Fangio said.

But how bad are the Jets? Even with Rypien starting with virtually no practice time before the team has to travel to New Jersey, it’s still a pick ‘em game according to online sports books. Wouldn’t it be something if Rypien could help save Gase’s job?