NY Jets: La’Mical Perine continues to be neglected in Adam Gase’s offense

NY Jets’ head coach Adam Gase continues to neglect rookie running back La’Mical Perine.

Assuming that NY Jets head coach Adam Gase keeps his job for the whole year, we may as well start commemorating the loss of La’Mical Perine’s rookie season now.

On May 6th, the Jets signed 37-year-old running back Frank Gore. Little did Jets fans know that this signing would completely bury Perine so far down the depth chart to the point where he would see zero offensive snaps in a game in which his team lost by 20 points.

If you were excited about a running back room made up of the three-down, X-factor Le’Veon Bell, the promising fourth-round rookie out of Florida, La’Mical Perine, and future Hall of Famer and short-yardage specialist Frank Gore, then your head must be exploding with questions and confusion after the recent slaughter that was Week 5.

In Bell’s first game back since suffering a hamstring injury in Week 1, he had 13 carries for 60 yards, averaging 4.6 yards per carry and one catch on just one target for seven yards.

Gase’s misuse of Bell has been borderline criminal as Bell went from one of the most dynamic offensive threats in the league to a one-trick pony.

Gore totaled nine carries for 30 yards, averaging 3.3 yards per carry, and Perine saw zero offensive snaps whatsoever.

As transcribed by Connor Hughes of The Athletic, Gase said giving no snaps to Perine “was just the flow of the game.” Hughes also reported that Gase said he didn’t want to put too much on Perine’s plate and “stunt his growth.”

So, Jets fans are left wondering, was it a casualty of game flow, or was it about not wanting to hurt Perine’s long term development? The two statements given by Gase contradict each other.

How could Gase blame game flow while also having a strict, predetermined stance on Perine’s usage? You can’t blame game flow if you had already planned on coddling Perine prior to the start of the game.

It’s clear that NY Jets’ head coach Adam Gase doesn’t want to play La’Mical Perine.

This was just another glaring example of incompetence from Gase, who now has more double-digit losses than wins in his head coaching career.

In a season where the Jets are winless through five weeks, have failed to play one single competitive game, and are bottom of the barrel in basically every major offensive statistic, there is absolutely no excuse for an unimpressive 37-year-old running back to out-snap a hungry rookie.

The only impressive thing about Gore this year is the fact that the old man has not yet completely turned to dust. Besides that, he has no business taking snaps away from Perine.

The Jets are a rebuilding team with a lot of undeveloped players — the head coach has to let the young guys play. Through five weeks, Perine has just 15 carries for 56 yards and has hauled in two targets for negative one yard.

Why Gase seems to be allergic to Perine and addicted to Gore is downright mind-boggling.

His handling of all three running backs has been an ugly but true indictment of Gase’s inability to develop young players and win games in the NFL.