Adam Gase uses John Madden’s two simple rules for his team
New Jets coach Adam Gase took a timeout to chat everything from how he can help young QB Sam Darnold to dealing with the pressure of a head-coaching job.
Q: What would you want the on-field mentality of your football team to be?
A: Fast, physical, swagger, confident, violent.
Q: What is your definition of swagger?
A: Just confident in knowing that you know how to do your job and you’re gonna do it better than the guy you’re going against.
Q: What is your definition of violent?
A: Playing more physical than the other team.
Q: What does it take to be a quarterback whisperer?
A: I don’t even know what that means. My job and the guys that I work with, our job is to make sure that we do a great job of using that guy to his strengths, and doing what’s best for the whole team at that time. So as a head coach, you have to think like this is how we have to play on offense, so that matches up with our defense and special teams.
Q: Sean McVay-Jared Goff, Matt Nagy-Mitchell Trubisky … can you be that to Sam Darnold?
A: I don’t want to compare myself to those guys, I think we all have different styles. I think I can do a lot that could help Sam. I think Sam has some gifts that you just can’t teach, and my job is to try to help him, put him in the best position possible, and then the things that I see that he’s really good at, really accentuate those, and the things he may need to work on, being able to say, “We need to work on this this and this,” and not overdo it and not really mental clutter him. Get it to the point where he can play fast, decisive, and then use his strengths to his advantage.
Q: Why did you say you liked his fire?
A: Just something about when you meet somebody and you can see their reaction to things, you can tell like it means something to ’em and it’s important to them. You can see like he wants to be a winner in this league, he wants to be the guy that charges ahead and the guy out front.
Q: How bad do you want to be a winner in this league?
A: I mean, as bad as you can possibly … whatever the highest level is.
Q: You’re here to win a Super Bowl.
A: I’m here to do everything I can to help out our team in that position.
Q: What is your definition of leadership?
A: For me it’s always lead by example. How hard of a worker are you? What do you bring to the table? When things are at their worst, how are you reacting ? Are you the first one out? Are you gonna be the one that’s gonna put yourself in front and be like, “Just follow me, I’ll lead us in the right direction.”
Q: What is your motivational style?
A: For me, it’s I think the passion to help the players, the passion to win, practice, meetings. … I’ve always just felt like being authentic, and not fake. I’ve always felt like that’s been something that’s really benefited me, ’cause I feel like players, the guys that I’ve been with can feel that I’m not just saying things to say it — like I mean it.
Q: What won’t you tolerate?
A: Selfishness.
Q: Do you have a lot of rules?
A: Stole John Madden’s: Be on time and play your ass off. It’s not hard.
Q: What are the qualities of the ideal Adam Gase football player?
A: Outside of athletic attributes? Selflessness. All-in on the team. Do whatever it takes to win. It doesn’t matter what the job is, just be ready to go. Hey, if you need somebody to go play gunner, it doesn’t matter what your status is, if you’re a starter, whatever it is, go in there and get the job done, we need you for that game.
Q: Any intangible traits that you can define?
A: I love guys that are just the self-made hard workers. You just want to be around those guys ’cause it’s contagious.
Q: A Wayne Chrebet-type?
A: Yeah, I would have loved to have been around him.
Q: How do you deal with the pressure of the job and the stress that comes with it?
A: This is what I’ve done my whole career. This is all I know. I don’t know anything else. It might be pressure and stress to somebody else, but you either apply or accept it. So, I mean, I look to apply pressure, that’s what I look to do.
Q: How do you do that?
A: Play really well. And get your guys ready to go.
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Q: The Patriots are known for blocking out the noise. How do you do that?
A: I don’t read anything, don’t look at the internet, don’t watch TV. For me, it’s pollution of the brain. That’s something I don’t need, something I don’t need to waste my time on. If I need to know something, somebody’ll tell me it if it’s that important.
Q: What drives you?
A: Winning. It makes more sense to me now than when I was younger when people would say, “Losing hurts twice as much as winning.” You love winning because you hate losing that much. I know what that feels like, especially after three years of being a head coach, I know what that feels like. Every week, it’s so hard to win in this league. You sacrifice everything you have, and that’s what I don’t think people understand what players and coaches do is they put everything else second to trying to win in a sport. But that’s how important it is, that’s how competitive the NFL is. There’s so many guys that just put it all in front. They sacrifice their entire life to be successful.
Q: As a kid were you a bad loser?
A: I don’t know if I was a bad loser. I didn’t like it. I hated it. But I think over time you despise it more and more, you want no part of it, you want to figure out a way to win.
Q: Who are coaches in other sports you admire?
A: [Celtics coach] Brad Stevens. I’ve always been a big fan of him. I reached out to him when he was at Butler, I just admired the way that he took them to the Final Four both those years [2010, 2011], and to me it was just like they looked like they felt like they belong there. It wasn’t like, “Oh this is too big for us,” it was like, “We’re here to win it.” I love that and what he brought to that, and seeing him in the NBA now, there’s not a change there. They had all those injuries last year, and they’re still fighting at the end, and to see what he’s done has been unbelievable. And Pat Riley, obviously, just being down in Miami and hearing just Pat Riley stories. That’s be awesome to sit down with him.
Q: If you could pick the brain if any coach in NFL history, who would it be?
A: Probably Vince Lombardi. … I think I’d just be curious to know his thoughts on motivating players, practicing … just all those little tiny details that I think gets taken for granted sometimes.
Q: Describe Alabama coach Nick Saban, who gave you a job on his Michigan State staff when you were an undergrad.
A: Great leader. Great motivator. Unbelievable at preparation. Best defensive mind I’ve ever been around.
Q: Mike Martz, who you worked with in Detroit and San Francisco.
A: Offensive genius. Unbelievable in front of a room of players. It doesn’t matter how much talent you have in a room, he makes everybody feel like they’re the best player at their position. It’s unbelievable how dynamic he is in front of a group.
Q: Are you dynamic in front of a room?
A: I think I’ve taken a lot of his traits. In front of players, he taught me something that as an early age of the confidence being in front of a group of players, knowing what you need to know cold to where players understand like your knowledge of what you’re doing is greater than everybody else.
Q: John Fox, who you worked with in Denver and Chicago.
A: I wish I was around him as a coordinator. I heard he was awesome as a defensive coordinator. I’ll say this: I learned from John Fox, honesty with players, and being up-front with players, was **** critical **** . He could get guys to fight for the same cause, which is going to win a Super Bowl. It was unique how he could get all three phases to understand like, “This is our goal.”
Q: What are your favorite sayings?
A: Work ethic eliminates fear. Ahmad Rashad [in an interview was asked]: “What made you be able to have confidence to make the big shots at the end of the game or go out and play with the confidence you did?” and he said, “I worked so hard in practice so when I got in a game, I wasn’t afraid to go on that 1-on-1, I wasn’t afraid to take that shot because I did it so many times in practice.”
Q: There’s a new Adam Gase’s Eyes website. Your reaction?
A: Whatever. … That’s not gonna help us win or lose games (smile).
Q: How has fatherhood changed you?
A: I think the biggest thing for me is before, you only care about yourself, and everything’s about you, to where now it’s I want to see my kids do stuff, I want to go to my daughter’s gymnastics meets and watch my kids play baseball or football or soccer, whatever they’re doing. It’s fun to watch them grow up. Like I love watching my sons go out and beat the [snot] out of each other playing tackle football in the backyard because they’re around it so much, they love it so much.
Q: Your daughter is 9, your sons are 6 and 5. Are they now Jets fans?
A: They swing quick. They hate the Dolphins, love the Jets (smile).
Q: Describe your daughter.
A: Sweet, caring. She can manipulate me to get whatever she wants, she knows that (smile). She can’t do that to my wife. My middle son is me to a T — is very analytical, is kind of a loner. He is gonna focus on what he’s doing. My youngest son, he is a free spirit, man, he just goes and does whatever is going on.
Q: How did you propose to your wife?
A: She was actually showing me around — I want to say we were in Jersey or by Philly — we were driving around her old neighborhood, she was like, “I lived here,” and I asked her to pull over, because I was like, “When am I gonna do this?” I didn’t want to do it in front of a group of people. And, I just pulled the ring out. And she’s like, “Are you asking me to marry you?” And I was like, “Yeah.” So I totally clammed up (smile).
Q: Who was your boyhood idol?
A: The one guy that I always liked watching growing up was Walter Payton. I just fell in love with the Bears and him.
Q: Hobbies?
A: Football.
Q: Two dinner guests?
A: Joe Namath, Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters.
Q: Favorite movie?
A: “Field of Dreams.”
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Pizza. I’m simple, man. You should have seen our pizza tab in Florida during a work week!
Q: What are thoughts about coaching in New York?
A: To me, if you’re a head coach of an NFL team, it’s a big deal, ’cause there’s only 32 of these jobs. And when you have that personal drive of what you want to do and you want to win and you want to get to that last game and give yourself a chance, it don’t matter where you can coach, in Alaska, it’s important.
Q: You met Joe Namath for the first time in Miami this past season.
A: He was standing next to the Big Show, you know the wrestler? So I’m friends with him, and they were standing over there, so I went over to see him, and I’m so glad I introduced myself. I texted him on Jan. 12.
Q: You’re bucking 50 years of Jets history.
A: Every year’s a new year. It’s that year. That year you’re going into, you need to focus on that year. What happened the year before, the year before that, 10 years before that, it doesn’t matter.
