Adam Gase – August 10, 2017
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Thursday, August 10, 2017
Postgame – Atlanta
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Adam Gase (transcribed by Michelle Stone)
(Adam, there were reports about [LB] Raekwon McMillan having a torn ACL. Is that true?) – “They haven’t told me anything yet, so unless you have better sources than I do…I’m the head coach.”
(You don’t know about the severity of it?) – “No.”
(Adam, what went through your mind when you saw Raekwon injured in the first special teams play?) – “I was kind of really asking what happened. We were talking about how he was going to have to possibly be on that team. We had to give him some reps, especially in the game. It’s tough to see a young player go down, not knowing what happened.”
(Adam, if he is in fact out, how devastating would it be to see him go down?) – “It’s the NFL. It’s the next man up. It’s how it goes. We’ll see what happens over the next couple of days.”
(Adam, what happened with taking that time out before the opening play of the game?) – “That was my fault. I screwed up. I thought they were in different personnel and changed the call and didn’t have enough time.”
(Adam, the adjustment [WR Leonte] Carroo made on his touchdown catch, was that pretty much a continuation of what he’s done in camp?) – “It was a great play by him and I love the fact that Brandon [Doughty, QB] gave him a shot. That wasn’t really what the play was meant for, but he made a good adjustment and made a great play.”
(Adam, what do you think – there were a couple of younger guys, [WR] Jakeem Grant and [DT] Devon Godchaux seemed pretty active out there. What did you think of each of their performances?) – “I like all of them. All of our young guys tried to play as fast as they could. It didn’t feel like we had a lot of mistakes, but we’ll go back and look at the tape and see what happened. We tried to stay very basic, let our guys play fast, and show us where they’re at. I felt the guys…they fought and kept playing hard when guys were trying to pull themselves out of the game. We had to call a time out on that one just to pull that one defense out of there. I know the guys are trying to get good work in in these preseason games and a lot of guys are competing for spots. It was good to see the effort we saw.”
(Did you like how Doughty played out there tonight?) – “Yes, I just wish he would have thrown that one away, but that’s the growing pains of a young quarterback.”
(There’ve been a lot of things – this is just the first preseason game, but it seems like there have been a lot of things that have happened since we came back in the spring and the summer. How do you approach, manage, handle when things go wrong?) – “Just keep going. Keep plugging. Keep encouraging guys to step up. That’s what our guys do. Our guys handle adversity just as good as anybody. They just keep going. We seem to find guys that, if they’re in a back-up role they’re ready to be starters. They just get after it and try to fill in for that guy.”
(Offensive line-wise, were you looking for individual performances or how different duos or trios played together?) – “Probably individual more than anything. We had a lot of guys rotate around. We had a lot of guys play a lot of snaps. We had four or five guys down right from the get go, so we were a little bit thin. We had some guys try to play a full game there.”
(Back to Raekwon, without knowing the severity of the injury, just how disappointed are you though that tonight you could have at least gotten the chance to see what he could do? Were you expecting him to play full snaps defensively?) – “He was going to play the first half. That’s the NFL for you.”
(How do you feel the running back group played tonight? Did anyone stand out for you?) – “I thought all those guys, they ran hard, they tried to stick with their run reads. It’s tough to play Dan’s [Quinn, Atlanta Falcons Head Coach] defense. It’s carry over from Seattle. They have one more than you most of the time and they’re low and they’re daring you to pass it. It’s tough sliding around the ball sometimes. You really have to do a good job of everyone getting on their man and holding their blocks. They’re physical and they’re relentless on defense. That’s why they had the year they had last year and you could tell with the way they play that it’s not going to change.”
(Storm Johnson [RB] had that big kickoff return – had you seen that from him at all in practice?) – “It’s hard to tell sometimes because we don’t go live a lot of times. A lot of times you’ll just see them fit up and it looks good and that’s why these are great. Everyone wants to see who can cover, who can tackle, who can return, how can they block up, how do guys work together in a kickoff return and the kickoff as well…that’s probably one of the better things about preseason games. Even though we don’t have a ton of them in the regular season it doesn’t seem like anymore, it’s a good way to find out who can do what.”
(Adam, can you talk about the decision to air it out there from your own one yard line?) – “I was trying to call something else. I was trying to call a shorter pass and David [Fales, QB] was just like, ‘Give him a go route. I’ll just throw it up to him.’ So it was a good call by him.”
(Third down, two minute warning, throw deep for a 28-yarder?) – “We’re trying – these guys have been working hard all spring and in training camp. We’re not going to go out there and stop playing. We’re just going to keep playing and in the regular season maybe we do something different, maybe not. Our job is to try to win the game and not put the defense out on the field.”
