The team’s fans fans can go ahead and criticize Adam Gase’s game plans and coaching. But at least the New York Jets coach can brag that he’s smart enough not to schedule a protest at 1 p.m. on a workday while people are, you know, working.

The New York Jets are 0-2 strictly on merit

The New York Jets have posted one winning record in the past decade, rarely make the playoffs, and haven’t been to a conference championship game since 1998. Their previous appearance in the conference final before that came in 1982.

However, the end of the 2019 season offered a glimmer of hope to fans. The Jets finished 7-9 last fall in Adam Gase’s first season as coach, but they closed strong by winning six of their last eight games.

The promise of the past hasn’t extended to the present. The Jets dropped their 2020 opener to the Buffalo Bills, 27-17, and then lost in Week 2 to the San Francisco 49ers, 31-13. The offense is last in the league in total yardage and next-to-last in points allowed, and the defense isn’t much better.

On top of everything else, they’ve listed 17 players on their most recent injury report heading into Week 3 on the road against the Indianapolis Colts and seem destined to get to the end of the season with no idea whether to pick up the fifth-year option on quarterback Sam Darnold.

Rather than hot and cold, the third-year QB’s performances seem to run warm and cool, making him worth keeping – but not at the salary that the fifth-year option would give him.

Not surprisingly, there’s plenty of speculation that Adam Gase is on the hot seat. After going 23-25 in three seasons as head coach of the Miami Dolphins, he’s off to a 7-11 start with New York.

The protesters were out, but not in force

Al Groh was a one-and-done head coach of the New York Jets (and in the NFL, for that matter) in 2000. Every one of his successors has been given at least three seasons. Adam Gase is two games into Year 2 with the team, and there’s a segment of the fan base that wants him gone ASAP.

Fortunately for Gase, that segment doesn’t seem particularly well-organized at the moment. Based on version 1.0 of the detractors’ effort to oust him, Gase could log a solid eight or 10 years on the sideline before being ousted.

The Jets’ offense may be a perpetual three-and-out, but Gase’s haters can’t even generate a turnout. The person operating the @OptimisticJets Twitter account tried to organize an anti-Gase protest organized for 1 p.m. Thursday at the Jets’ practice facility in New Jersey. That inspired four disgruntled fans — about a dozen people short of the average drive-thru line at Taco Bell at 10 p.m. – to show up.

That’s not to say they’re wrong to be upset with the direction that Gase has taken the Jets thus far, but Larry Brown Sports may have summed it up best:

“If Gase doesn’t turn things around quickly, he’s going to lose his job. We just don’t think the four fans who showed up at Thursday’s ‘protest’ are going to tip the scale,” the website posted.

Don’t expect Adam Gase to go just yet

As awful as things look for the New York Jets at the moment, don’t expect them to put any stock in the weak attempt at a protest just yet. After all, ESPN radio and TV host Mike Greenberg got nowhere with his torching of coach Adam Gase after the opening-week loss to the Buffalo Bills:

“My children are grown up now. And if I’m fortunate enough that one of them has a son or a daughter who decides they want to play football, and they’re in fifth grade and they get their first opportunity to play football, I wouldn’t hire to Adam Gase to coach that team, because he would be in over his head.”

Mike Greenberg