Frank Gore – October 21, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Postgame – Detroit Lions
Miami Dolphins RB Frank Gore (transcribed by Anthony Gutierrez)
(When WR Albert Wilson went out, was there kind of a change of maybe what you guys wanted to do offensively?) – “No because it’s always next man up. We have a bunch of guys who can play ball here. We just understand we have to start faster. I think if we start faster, the better we’ll be.”
(How do you guys go about this quick turnaround with a game on Thursday?) – “We’ve got to get it out of our heads and get ready for the Houston Texans.”
(You guys have been so good about scoring and coming back so resilient this season. Why didn’t that happen today?) – “We just didn’t make the plays when they were there. We kept fighting, but we just have to start faster.”
Davon Godchaux – October 21, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Postgame – Detroit Lions
Miami Dolphins DT Davon Godchaux (transcribed by Ken Mendonça)
(Was this just the issue of third down struggles?) – “We were always in third-and-one, third-and-two. We never could seem like we could get in third-and-long. The Detroit Lions, they just played better than us today.”
(You guys have been playing so well on the front line. Is this kind of a humbling performance?) – “I wouldn’t say humbling. I’m in the five more hour rule because we have to move on. We have to play Houston, a team who’s won four straight. They’re not going to feel sorry for us. Nobody’s going to feel sorry for us, so we have to move on from this one quick because we have a Thursday night game against the Houston Texans and they are playing really good ball right now.”
(What would you attribute the inconsistency to, because last week you guys were doing pretty well?) – “I wouldn’t say it was inconsistent. They just made plays and we didn’t. Detroit made plays. They get paid like we get paid. They made plays we didn’t, bottom line.”
Brock Osweiler – October 21, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Postgame – Detroit Lions
Miami Dolphins QB Brock Osweiler
What did you think of the offense today?
BROCK OSWEILER: We didn’t do enough to win the game as an offensive unit. It’s our job to score more points than the other team and we didn’t do that today, so we need to be better.
Can you describe your comfort zone today, as opposed to the last week, having a full week of practice to work with the ones? Was it smoother for you today than it was last week?
BROCK OSWEILER: I would say my chemistry with some of the skill guys is growing. I didn’t get any reps with the ones in OTAs or training camp or anything like that, so the first time I was throwing the ball or handing ball off to a lot of those guys was last Sunday. So I’d say my chemistry is growing, getting the game last week with them, getting a week of practice and then getting today; but as far as my overall comfort in the offense, I was extremely comfortable last week and I was comfortable this week.
How did WR Albert Wilson going out of the game impact what you guys were able to do going forward after that?
BROCK OSWEILER: It definitely hurts us. Albert is a tremendous football player. He brings a lot of energy to this offense. He brings a spark. Any time you get the football in his hands, he might, make a big play for us, so we definitely missed him. But in saying that, the motto of this football team is next man up and whoever needs to step into that role needs to step in and play big because Albert set the bar very high for that position. Whoever needs to step in needs to play up to that bar.
It looked like this game was a game of starts. They started out quickly, scored on every drive they had except for one punt and then you guys came out in your first three or four series without getting any points on the board. You scored after that. What was the … Did you get a feel for the reason that you had a slow start like that?
BROCK OSWEILER: Yeah, there was just no rhythm offensively and this offense really gets going and is really effective when we start stacking first downs together and we weren’t able to do that early unfortunately. We kicked ourselves in the butt with some negative plays and we weren’t able to overcome them.
From where you were standing, the difficulty running the football, certainly in the first half?
BROCK OSWEILER: That’s the National Football League. It’s tough every Sunday no matter who you’re playing. The guys across from you, they are big, they are tough, they are physical and they are fast. So give Detroit credit, they came to play today. They had a great scheme. Coach (Matt) Patricia and his staff put together a great game plan and they executed it very well.
How did you feel you played?
BROCK OSWEILER: I was happy with some of the things we did but there’s definitely a lot of room to grow; and ultimately, we did not score enough points to win the game, and I’m the only guy on offense who touches the ball every single play, so that bothers me. I feel like I need to find a way to play better, to find a way to put the offense in the end zone more, and that’s something that Coach Gase and I will sit down and look at and talk about.
I think your quarterback rating is over a hundred. I’m wondering if it’s more frustrating to play pretty good and still lose because where do you go from there?
BROCK OSWEILER: I think I know what you’re asking. I don’t care about stats. I don’t care about stats at all. The only thing I care about is wins and losses, and so when we win, it’s a great day. When we lose, it’s a bad day, and it’s really that simple for me. I think there’s a lot of people that get into passer ratings and third-down efficiency and red zone, and obviously those things matter at the end of the day. But the biggest stat is wins and losses in this league in my opinion, and today we lost and we didn’t do enough on offense to put our team in a position to win the game.
In terms of your receivers going down – WR Albert Wilson and then WR Kenny Stills – is it to a point where you don’t know which five guys will be out there and is that at all difficult for you?
BROCK OSWEILER: Well, we had to get creative in the fourth quarter, let’s just put it like that. There was a lot of in the huddle, rather than calling plays, you would point at a guy and say, you line up in the slot, you run this route, you run this route. There was a little backyard football to it. I will say this: our coaching staff did a tremendous job of communicating to me who was in the game, where they wanted them to be and what they wanted them to do. There was no one on our sideline who blinked an eye, regardless of the adversity we faced. We were ready with answers and that’s what we did.
Could you give an example of that creativity?
BROCK OSWEILER: No, I can’t.
Reshad Jones – October 21, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Postgame – Detroit Lions
Miami Dolphins S Reshad Jones (transcribed by Ken Mendonça)
(On what went wrong in the game defensively) – “It’s hard to tell you what went wrong, right now, in the run game, pass game, whatever. Once we break the film down, I’ll definitely give you a better answer.”
(How challenging is it going to four days to get ready for the next game?) – “It’s part of the NFL. You have to have a short-term memory. We’ve got another tough opponent in the Houston Texans. I know this coaching staff and these players, we’ve got resilient guys – like I always say – in this locker room, and I know these guys will be ready Thursday night.”
(How tough is it to respond to this, considering you guys have played so well earlier this season defensively?) – “It’s kind of tough. We want to win every game, but we can’t. Like I said, we just have to break the film down and see where we went wrong. We have to continue to play as a defense. Everybody has to play together. It takes all 11 guys to get the job done. We have to give credit to the Lions. Like I said, they did enough today to win a football game.”
Danny Amendola – October 21, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Postgame – Detroit Lions
Miami Dolphins WR Danny Amendola (transcribed by Daniel Chavez)
(It seems you were getting some body woes there as far as injuries today to the receivers, to the pass catchers. Is this a particularly tough day for you guys? ) – “We got a tough group, but it’s a rough sport. That’s the way it goes sometimes but we’re very resilient and we battle.”
(What had WR Albert Wilson meant to your guys’ offense to this point?) – “He’s a great player. He brings a lot to our team. He’s a great teammate, he plays really hard and he’ll be back. He’s a really tough player.”
(What do you think about QB Brock Osweiler the last two weeks, what he’s doing for you guys?) – “He’s a competitor. He battles. He’s played a lot of good football in his career. He’s a good player.”
Cameron Wake – October 21, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Postgame – Detroit Lions
Miami Dolphins DE Cameron Wake
The run defense, they put up 248 rushing yards today.
CAM WAKE: I didn’t realize (it was) that much but a lot has to go wrong for that to happen. (It was) a very odd situation because, when something like that happens, you want to sit down and pick apart the whole game play-by-play; but the reality is today’s Wednesday and we have a game coming up very quickly. We have to move on. I know for sure that our guys will go back and look at the tape. Any time that happens, very rarely is it just somebody comes in and runs all over you. It’s miscommunication or somebody not where they are supposed to be, not playing complementary from front to back is the only way I can describe it.
How would you evaluate the pass rush?
CAM WAKE: Not good enough. But I think, if you’re running for 250, you’re third-and-short every time. I mean, there’s not going to be much of an opportunity. We always say as a front, you’ve got to do your work first. Stop the run so you can play and rush the passer. I don’t know all of the details but I’m pretty sure there weren’t too many third-and-longs out there because we weren’t stopping the run. So pass rushing on third-and-2 is probably not going to be an advantageous position for getting after the quarterback.
How much of a challenge is it now to try to put this behind you when you have a game coming up behind you?
CAM WAKE: It’s going to be … I just said, it’s Wednesday. To the rest of the world it’s Sunday, but for us it’s Wednesday. In a very normal week, we wouldn’t even be talking about the (next) game. Usually I say you’ve got about 24 hours to pat yourself on the back or lick your wounds. You’ve got about 30 minutes to figure that out now. You’ve got to already be getting ready for the next opponent. It’s an away game obviously, so we are traveling there, too. It’s a lot, but everybody has to get their job done. We are all big boys, grown men. You’ve got to have a short memory, wipe the slate clean and start focusing on the next task.
I don’t have the stats in front of me but I don’t imagine you guys have given up that kind of running stats all season. What happens when someone does that?
CAM WAKE: There’s no way you could have told me that would be something that would happen today. I’m pretty sure, I don’t know the stats either, but that hasn’t been something we’ve encountered in the past season and maybe if you probably look back to last season before you find something like that or numbers like that. But if that was a recurring thing, then I would probably be a little nervous. Again, I think that has to be miscommunication. Out of position, wrong fit, whatever it is. That’s the only way I can explain without seeing the tape; but at the same time, as frustrating as that is, that means it’s very easily fixable. Be where you’re supposed to be and as you’ve seen, we’ve done it in the past. So it’s not, ‘I can’t do.’ It’s ‘I didn’t do,’ and we’ve just got to make sure again on defense, it’s every single play for 60 or more minutes. You’ve got to play four quarters. We didn’t.
How did you feel out there, your first game back?
I felt good. I’m glad to be back out there. It’s hard watching (from) the sidelines. I want to get out there and help. It eases my soul.
How frustrating are all of these injuries?
CAM WAKE: It’s football. Every game you turn on, somebody is going to get injured. That’s the way it is. You roll the dice. It’s not if, it’s when, and nobody can predict when. So there’s nothing you can do about it, unless we put on flags. But that’s not … I mean, we’re going in that direction though.
So three weeks ago, you guys are in first place, and now, I don’t even know if you’re in third place. Does that concern you that you’re going in the wrong direction?
CAM WAKE: It’s early. We’ve got nine more games, I think. I’ve played a lot of football and I’ve seen things change. So we have a lot of work to do, but we have a lot of time, as well. I’m not panicking yet. We’ve got a lot of time but at the same time, we have to make sure we don’t play like this on both sides of the ball. So it’s not an impossible task. I think we’ve shown what we’re capable of, but you’ve got to do it consistently. You can’t be up, down, up, down. You’ve got to play every week, play together and start stacking wins so that whenever it comes down the line, Week 13, you’re not saying, ‘Oh, we should have, or I wish we would have.’ You (have to) put yourself in a place so that you don’t have to worry about that.
Adam Gase – October 21, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Postgame – Detroit Lions
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Adam Gase
Coach, were you surprised enough with Detroit’s ability to run the ball successfully? I think RB Kerryon Johnson’s first two carries had 95 yards. They had like 138 rushing yards in the first half. I’m assuming that’s now what you expected?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: No. It wasn’t. We didn’t play very well against the run today. Basically they could do whatever they wanted on that side of the ball. It’s just kind of unusual for our guys. Usually when we have a drive like that, we respond the rest of the game and find a way to get off the field and kind of stop those type of drives.
I think they had one punt. They scored on every other drive, which, in your own backyard, not something you want to see?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: No, it’s not ideal. But we’ve got to find a way to match it on the other side of the ball and create more points.
Do you feel like your offense did enough?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: No, because we lost. We let a couple of drives get away from us. Ended up in third-and-long a couple of times that really put us in a bad position. The way that they are going to play on anything past third-and-10, it’s got to be the perfect call and we’ve got to execute it the right way and they have got to kind of make a mistake.
How did you guys come out with WR Albert Wilson leaving the game?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I’m not sure yet but there’s a lot of guys at the end of the game who were trying to make stuff up and figure out a way to get back in the game.
Is that only exacerbated by the short week?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I mean we’ll find out who is available. Once we know who is available, we just have to figure out who we are going to have personnel-group wise on that side of the ball.
Are there players who are playing hurt that might not have otherwise played if not for the fact that you were short numbers?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I think we were good as far as the guys that had missed time. They said they were ready to go and they wanted to be out there, so we felt good about it.
Why was WR DeVante Parker inactive?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: That’s what we decided to do this game and we had those four guys that had been kind of rolling together and we wanted to get (Kalen) Ballage up and he’s doing a lot on special teams, and we had some things in the red area for him and we were about ready to use him; but we were missing a couple of other pieces to it.
So was WR DeVante Parker healthy?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: He’s not completely healthy yet but we’re still working through some things.
I know you have to look at the tape, but when you looked at this game from the standpoint of what they were able to do, it looked like the receivers were open quite a bit, the tight end had caught one pass coming in had two touchdowns. It seemed like they were able to do what they wanted. What did you see defensively that allowed them to do that?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: We couldn’t stop them. That’s just what it was. They were executing better than us and we just didn’t do enough to affect the quarterback. It didn’t seem like he got out of rhythm. That was really the No. 1 thing we were talking about all week, and that guy, if you give him time and he doesn’t feel the pressure up front and we’re not tight enough in coverage, you’re going to have problems.
Do you look at this game as an opportunity lost, another team coming into your stadium and a good opportunity to knock them off?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: Any time that we’re playing at home, and we don’t win, that’s something that … that’s not something that we’re going to accept. We expect to win our home games and we didn’t get it done today.
Quick turnaround Thursday, they’re always tough. It seemed like every time you turned around somebody was limping off the field. You lost WR Kenny Stills at the end of the game. Try to get ready as fast as you can but how do you do that?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: We’ll find out what’s going on with injuries (and) see who’s available. We had enough healthy guys on the inactive (list) that A.J. (Derby) was close to coming back. We’ll figure something out. It’s going to be a short week but at the same time, we’ll have enough guys to be ready to go.
Is QB Ryan Tannehill close enough where he might come back Thursday?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I don’t know yet because we haven’t gotten that far yet. I was worried about today.
What were your thoughts on QB Brock Osweiler?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: He was … I thought he played good. A lot of times, those sacks, one of them, he probably could have avoided but the rest of those, it was so fast. He didn’t really have a chance to defend himself. I thought he did a good job of what we asked him to do. It was just kind of one of those things where we can’t put ourselves in third-and-long. We had to stay ahead of the sticks and we didn’t do a good enough job there.
Today was the second time that WR Kenny Stills collided with someone when he was scoring a touchdown … is that something you will address with somebody or is that a concern for you?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: Not really. I didn’t think the last time … That was kind of an unusual situation, the ball he caught there. Every stadium is like that where that can happen.
Cameron Wake – October 18, 2018
Thursday, October 18, 2018
DE Cameron Wake
(Do you expect to play Sunday?) – “You should find out on Sunday.”
(Why the need for the surgical procedure that ESPN said you had?) – “ESPN said I had surgery?”
(Yeah.) – “That’s interesting.”
(What did they determine then? Was it worrisome to you that you wanted to avoid surgery but felt like you had to?) – “I didn’t know I had surgery. You’ve got talk to ESPN about that.”
(How frustrating was it to have to sit out the past two games?) – “It’s always frustrating when you can’t be out there helping the team, especially when you feel like you could contribute. But at the end of the day, you cheer them on, do what you can from the sideline, help out when you can and pray for a W.”
(There are a lot of young defensive ends now getting a lot of playing time. Do you find yourself going over to them and playing the role of teacher? I don’t know if that’s the right word.) – “I’m just trying to bestow whatever wisdom I’ve gained over my years playing and trying to help them make plays. Obviously we’ve got a lot of talented players who can play the game, young, mid and old. But I think all of us together, we’re kind of all focused on the same goal and that’s making plays and helping the team win. I don’t have to help as much. Guys are on the right track as far as their mentality or the way they approach the game, but wherever I can put my two cents in, I try my best.”
(How have you felt this week in practice?) – “Felt good.”
(Are you 100 percent yet?) – “We’ll see on Sunday.”
(The wisdom you talked about, how hard is it to kind of rely on that when you want to go out there but you know you should hold back a little bit?) – “Every player wants to play every play, but you’ve got to be smart and do what you can and look at the total picture. You can’t be narrow-minded. I think we’ve done a good job of that so far and that should continue on to the rest of the season.”
(Do you expect to play as much as you have been playing where you’ve been taking pretty much half the snaps?) – “It’ll be Christmas morning on Sunday. Everybody will find out all kinds of information and surprises and all of that.”
(How often do these young guys actually come to you on their own, show that initiative on their own and try to pick your brain like you used to do with Jason Taylor back in the day?) – “I guess ‘often’ is a relative term, but I find myself helping out a lot. I’ll say that. We have guys who probably have played in their first NFL game the last couple of weeks. So again, whatever, from the smallest thing to the biggest thing, you’ve got to help out with whatever you can. I’m not the only one obviously. We’ve got other guys who have played many, many snaps in this league and they’re doing the same thing. We’ve got a good mix. You’ve got the young guys mixing in with the older guys and we’re all helping each other out. The wisdom and the youth all combining together and staying focused on one goal.”
(Is Sunday going to be another Sunday for you or is it going to be like Christmas morning for you too?) – “I’m Santa Claus. I know what’s going on. You guys don’t. (laughter)”
(The timeline on this thing, it looks like you tried to play through it in the New England game?) – “I’m always playing through something. It’s football.”
(It looked like you were trying to play through this specifically, at least from what the injury reports were. What was it that just didn’t…) – “It’s football.”
(What made you pull the plug on it?) – “Just like I said, being smart, looking at the total picture (and) not being narrow-minded. I think we did a good job.”
(This position, defensive end, started probably as the greatest strength on the team. To see how snake-bitten you’ve been, including DE Charles Harris, as coach said getting injured on the last play of practice last week, have you ever seen a position that was such a strength be decimated so quickly?) – “I’d have to go into my mental memory books; but unfortunately, it’s part of the game. No other sport, I think, has to deal with what we deal with, 16 games, and every game you’ve ever watched, somebody is getting injured. More often than not, it might be season-ending somewhere on one side of the ball. That’s just part of the business. You hope you can do whatever you can to get back, but as a defensive end, or I’d say as football player mostly, it requires a tremendous amount of physical effort and everything needs to be hitting on all cylinders and if not, you’d probably do better to sit out and get yourself back to that point. The dice got rolled however they got rolled and the d-ends have been rolling snake eyes; but I think we’re a tough group. We’ll got out there and make it happen.”
(We saw so many promising things early with you and DE Robert Quinn. Have you guys talked in terms of – I know you look at a game at a time and not collectively 10 – but as far as the two of you, that your eagerness to wreak havoc essentially on offenses over the last 10 games?) – “Yeah. We do. We talk quite often. We sit near each other in here, we sit next to each other in the room. Being two older veterans in the league, it’s always something that we come to terms with and share information back and forth; but again, we’ve got to go out there on Sundays and make it happen. I think the next couple of weeks, I think we’ll look forward to doing that.”
