Bill Belichick is a man of few words, but he had plenty to say about Adam Gase, the Jets head coach who, as first officially broken by Craig Carton at the top of Tuesday’s Carton & Roberts Show, will be coaching his final game with Gang Green on Sunday.
And surprisingly, most of those words about Gase, and the Jets, were positive.
“The Jets are playing well. They’re playing good, complementary football,” Belichick said Tuesday during his morning media briefing. “They’ve certainly generated a good pass rush and pressure on the passer. Again, they’re scoring points offensively, playing good, complementary football, playing from ahead. They could have easily won our game, they could have easily beaten [Las Vegas], so they’ve been very competitive in a lot of games.”
Jets-Patriots always has sizzle, especially in Week 17, and especially as long as the guy who was briefly HC of NYJ for a hot minute stays in New England, but this game is a little different. Over two weeks, the Jets have gone from possible history and landing spot for generational talent Trevor Lawrence to 2-13 and locked into the No. 2 spot – and, again, now a team reportedly led by an official lame duck coach.
The Patriots, meanwhile, just suffered their worst home loss of the Belichick era on Monday night, and at 6-9 will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2008 and just the second time in the 32-team era.
The two teams’ previous game back in November was a 30-27 Pats win, but came after the Jets led 27-17 entering the fourth and gave up 13 fourth-quarter points, the last three on a last-second field goal.
Belichick has seen a lot since then, even if it wasn’t enough to save Gase’s job.
“I think Adam’s done a great job this year of continuing to improve the team with coaching, and as usual, his excellent game-planning and play-calling are problems for the defense,” Belichick said. “This is a team that’s gotten better, and gotten a good level of play here in the second half.
Fundamentally, you can see the improvements they’re making.”
And now, on Sunday, it’s a lame duck coach looking to leave on a three-game win streak (at least according to our Craig Carton) versus a legend looking to end what will be the Patriots’ worst season since 2000 (his rookie year in Foxboro) with a strong performance.
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
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