Gase was hired by the Bears last January, following John Fox from the Denver Broncos to Chicago.
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Gase has been a name tossed around in multiple head coaching openings over the last three seasons. Evidently, the eight-hour interview went well and many were considering the Eagles as the front-runners to bring him in as head coach. The Bears finished 6-10, but notched big wins over the Kansas City Chiefs and the Green Bay Packers and were in the playoff hunt until a three-game December swoon ended that.
“I couldn’t be happier for Adam and his family”, Cutler said. They met with him Wednesday, interviewing him before any other candidates. He’ll be an excellent head coach, without a doubt. His work with quarterbacks is well documented and I know first-hand how good he is.
Michigan State/LSU head coach Nick Saban: Gase was a student assistant at Michigan State, and was there when New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels spent a year there as a graduate assistant coach with the Spartans; Gase was graduate assistant and recruiting assistant at LSU. Instead, the Dolphins fast-tracked it and got him signed this morning, hours before the postseason officially starts. It might be too much to ask of a new first time head coach to retain a man who is so revered in the organization.
Feel bad for Dolphins fans, whom probably won’t take kindly to someone tossing the new coach under the bus.
“We did exhaustive research on all of the candidates ahead of time and conducted thorough and detailed interviews with each person”, said Dolphins owner and managing general partner Stephen Ross in a statement on the team’s website on Saturday. “He’s ready for this for sure”.
Gase’s success in Denver was rooted in play-calling.
In the past 14 seasons, the Dolphins have made the playoffs once, going 11-5 under coach Tony Sparano in 2008.
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But perhaps no single player in Miami is more important to Gase right now than Tannehill, whose contract dictates the two will be paired together for at least a season or two. The Browns tried to interview Gase in 2014 before he removed himself from consideration to focus on a Super Bowl run with the Broncos, whose legendary quarterback and friend of Haslam, Peyton Manning, has endorsed Gase.
