Adam Gase – December 17, 2016 (Postgame)
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Saturday, December 17, 2016
Postgame – at New York
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Adam Gase (as transcribed by the New York Jets)
On how he would rate Matt Moore’s performance…
I thought he did a good job. The short week, we were just trying to put this thing together as clean as possible, get him to feel as comfortable as he possibly could. It’s no secret it’s been a while since he’s started a football game in the regular season, so you just want to make sure he felt good coming into this game.
On what impressed him about Moore’s performance…
I thought his command. We took some shots, too, and he hit them. (He) missed a couple that I know he wanted back, but (he) kept his head, kept plugging along. The run game wasn’t exactly what we thought it was going to be. We thought maybe we’d have a little more success, but they did a good job as far as getting penetration and causing some problems for us. Jay (Ajayi) was running hard for us and he was trying to find some lanes, but we were just a little off in the run game.
On Moore’s approach to the game…
He was great all week. It was interesting to see the roles kind of switch between those two guys and just how their personalities have just switched. It was pretty interesting to go through this week. Matt all of a sudden became all serious and Ryan (Tannehill) was joking around. It was an interesting process to go through.
On Cameron Wake’s performance…
The defense did a great job. Just the turnovers, just causing problems, the pressure was relentless, guys were playing hard. I know there are a couple of things (Vance Joseph) is going to want to clean up. Those guys are perfectionists and want to make sure they do everything right. I know (Bilal) Powell had a good day and we just need to get tighter on some of those check-downs and tackle a little bit quicker. But there’s a reason they’re getting into those check-downs, because the coverage was pretty good outside and guys were keeping those receivers, the coverage was really tight.
On what ensuring a winning season means…
I don’t know if we’re really worried about final records or anything right now. We’re trying to win one game at a time. I know I’ve said it before. It gets boring. But that’s what it is. Our guys are focused on just making sure whatever opponent we have next, that we come out of that week 1-0.
On Xavien Howard’s performance…
It looked like he was pretty good to me. He was competitive, got his hands on some balls. He looked like he never really left us. That was a surprise, when (Byron) Maxwell went out, that was the first thing that went through my head, “Alright, so, how many snaps is he actually going to get this game, considering we were only thinking he was going to get 15,” and I know it was way over that.
On how reassuring it is to have a backup like Moore…
Well, it’s really been our mantra all year. We’ve had quite a few guys go down and we’ve had some really good players go down and the entire team’s had that next-man-up mentality. And no matter what the position’s been, somebody’s either stepped up or the rest of the guys have stepped up around him and made sure that all the pressure wasn’t on one person and they’re trying to do it as a unit. And whether it’s been a team, special teams, defense, offense, that group has tried to pick it up.
On the television broadcast reporting Tannehill tore his MCL off the bone…
That’s hard for me to answer. I didn’t hear it. I just know whatever I told you guys is what I was told.
On Ajayi and Jarvis Landry both surpassing 1,000 yards on the season tonight…
Any time that you hit those numbers it’s a great accomplishment. I think it’s hard for either of those guys to focus on that right now. I know they’ve never spoken to me about it. I’ve never really heard them speak about it around their teammates. I think it’s just one of those things that at the end of the year when your season’s over you may look back on it and say that was a number you were either shooting for or people thought they would get, but I don’t know that either of those guys are worried about individual statistics at this point.
On why the team has a knack for big plays…
I think guys are just playing hard and on defense it seems like a lot of guys are in the right place at the right time and it just comes from effort and pursuit. And on special teams it just seems like the same guys show up over and over again, put themselves in position to when something like that happens, they end up getting a big play off of it. It just seems like (Mike Hull) seems to be the guy that’s really making a huge impact on special teams, which he has been, it’s just now it’s resulting into points. Offensively, we had a couple opportunities where they were aggressive as far as what they were calling and we finally hit a couple there in the third quarter that swung the game for us.
On Wake’s performance…
I think when you have a player of his ability that has played as long as he has, he has that knack for timing. It just seems like he knows when there are those moments in a game where if something could swing a game, he just seems to find that moment and make it happen. I know him intercepting (the ball), he’s dropping into a zone blitz. Sometimes when you’re a quarterback you just don’t see that guy, you don’t anticipate that guy being in that spot. A lot of times the defensive end just has to catch it. It was interesting; I was watching him catch balls in warm-ups thinking to myself, “Why is he catching balls in warm-ups?” And all of a sudden I look up and he picks one off. So maybe he knew something that I didn’t.
On if the deep ball after stopping the Jets on fourth down was intentionally taking a shot…
No, that was just something we called. I was getting tired of just sitting back and trying to throw quick. It was just a good opportunity to start pushing the envelope a little bit and stop being so conservative.
On the confidence boost the game gives Moore…
I don’t think there ever was a lack of confidence by Matt, ever, at least as long as I’ve known him. I think this team felt like whoever stepped into that role when Ryan went down was going to do a good job with what we asked him to do and they had a lot of confidence that the rest of the guys on offense would step up and make plays.
