Adam Gase – November 19, 2018
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Monday, November 19, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(How did you use the bye?) – “I did some evaluation on all three phases. We kind of broke some things up just to look at some different situations and schemes and the whole gamut, and see what had happened, where can we make some improvement, where can we make some changes. It’s one of those things where you want to really focus on that stuff and at the same time you’re trying to get a little bit recharged. It’s been a while, really a couple years, since we had one of those.”
(What was the most surprising thing you discovered taking a pause and doing the self-scout?) – “You know what it is because you watch this stuff nonstop. You’re reconfirming what you already know. It’s really about what’s the solution. That’s really what we focused on. We feel like we have some things that we can help ourselves with. There’s some things where if we can just get a little bit of improvement, it could put us in some better situations. If we had some better execution sometimes in some of the situations, that would really be ideal, especially in the red zone on both sides of the ball.”
(What about defensively?) – “The biggest thing we’re always going to keep working on, especially the next six weeks, is eliminating the explosive plays. That’s really been what’s hurt us more than anything. All it takes is one guy to slide out of his gap, and that’s what it’s been. I wish I could say it’s this one guy, but especially the last three or four weeks, it just comes down to everybody trusting each other that they’re going to do their job. If we can just focus on doing that, that’s going to save us from a lot of heartache.”
(What were you guys able to do with QB Ryan Tannehill over the past week?) – “We just increased his throwing program. Really, it’s kind of that ‘did we cover this? Did we do on the move, awkward throws?’ That’s the next step. We just kept trying to spitball things off each other and make sure that we’re covering everything before we would get him out to practice to where now all of a sudden, something comes up and he hasn’t done it yet. Once we got through the initial stationary target – 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 – now, let’s get some moving bodies in there. It’s not the same because it’s trainers running around instead of professional athletes, but he does a good job of simulating that in his head of ‘I have to put the ball here and I have to pretend it’s a moving target.’”
(How does QB Ryan Tannehill look to you?) – “He looks like what I remember. I feel like it’s forever since I’ve seen him throw, but to me, he looks what he once looked like. Now it’s about the next day. ‘HHHow do I feel the next day?’ And then how much can we do the next day? Then, after a day off, how does he feel after that? Really, it’s going to be a test. When we go out to practice and now it’s a different intensity, it’s different throws. You have bodies in front of you and now your arm angle has to change. There’s some things we can’t do with him on air that we’re going to be able to do with him at practice.”
(Do you expect to have QB Ryan Tannehill practice on Wednesday then?) – “That is a discussion I still have to have with him. I need him to just shoot me straight and tell me where he’s at and we’ll go from there. Obviously, practice is going to come up here quick and then I’ll have a better idea. I probably purposely didn’t meet with him yet so I didn’t have an answer for you. (laughter)”
(What are QB Ryan Tannehill’s chances of playing this week?) – “I don’t know. I’ll find out here in a little bit. I really don’t know. I’m not going to rule him out because if he comes to me and is like ‘I feel great.’ We can’t be wrong of starting the week one way and then flipping back or vice versa of we get to Friday and all of a sudden it’s ‘I feel like I can go.’ It just doesn’t work. It’s just hard enough for a quarterback as it is when you get all the reps during a week of practice. We’ll kind of see how it goes.”
(So you don’t anticipate making that decision by Wednesday like you have previous weeks?) – “I think we’re practicing tomorrow, right? I’m running out of time.”
(What changed with WR Jakeem Grant and what did that mean for you guys?) – “Nothing really changed. It was just getting the results of everything and getting our options. The good thing is he didn’t tear his Achilles. He’s able to get a procedure done to where we can get him back a lot sooner and still fix the things that we need him to get fixed to where he can alleviate a lot of the pain that he’s been going through. It’s unfortunate for us because I felt like he was having a really good year. He was doing a lot for us. Once again, it’s a crushing blow for a guy that gives you everything he has.”
(As far as kick returning and punt returning duties, is there going to be more WR Danny Amendola on the punt return?) – “We’ll see. We’re going to have to probably move some things around. That’s obvious.”
(Do you have a better idea on your offensive tackles, T Laremy Tunsil and T Ja’Wuan James?) – “I don’t yet. I haven’t spoken to either one of those guys. I know they were trying to rehab and see where they’re at when we get going tomorrow. I’ll have a chance to holler at those guys at some point, either today or tomorrow.”
(Is there a chance WR DeVante Parker plays this week?) – “I think so. We’ll see how practice goes. It’s one thing to go out there and be able to be dressed for a game ready to go, but to be able to be as effective as we need guys to be, that’s what it comes down to. Can he do what he needs to do?”
(You said WR Jakeem Grant didn’t tear his Achilles. Was it an injury to his Achilles?) – “It was something different. I try not to pay too much attention to the exacts of everything because I know I’ll mess it up. That’s why I do that sometimes. It was not the Achilles, though, because the first thing everybody thought is that’s what it was. That would have been the first person I ever saw hop off the field like that with an Achilles injury. Usually, you just see him down and they’re trying to figure out what happened. It was something in that area. He’s had Achilles pain for probably four years. He’s played through it coming from college. It just is what it is. He just doesn’t say a whole bunch about it.”
(With TE Mike Gesicki, obviously he’s made progress. Was it unrealistic for people – media, fans – to think he’d come in and catch a million balls as a rookie just because it’s tough at that position to learn everything you need to learn?) – “In my head, I was thinking we were going to be able to, especially early on, get the one-on-one coverages and make the defense really think like, ‘All right, we’ve got to take him away.’ It was just strange how we started out and all of a sudden we’re getting two guys going out on him. I’m like, ‘He hasn’t caught a touchdown pass yet. Why is this happening?’ I think it was a little bit of a surprise on the fact that they were respecting what he had done in college and not giving him the opportunity to have the one-on-one matchups that you’re hoping he would have. We don’t see as much man as what we probably anticipated leading into the season. That’s where he would have a lot of success going against a linebacker or a safety; but instead he’s getting a lot more corner … We’re getting zone looks, two-high type deals. That’s where we should be able to run the ball better and take advantage of that.”
(If QB Ryan Tannehill could play this week, what gives you confidence that he’s going to be able to pick up where he left off?) – “I mean, these guys are professional athletes. This is what they do. This is what they know. If he’s in there, I’m not going to be thinking like, ‘Well, he hasn’t played …’ We’re going to go. We’re going to play and if he makes a mistake, he makes a mistake. I’m not going to sit there and dwell on it. Whenever this happens where he goes in there, I just want him to just play his game and not worry about anything else.”
(With WR Albert Wilson and WR Jakeem Grant down, let’s talk about WR Kenny Stills for a minute. What kind of an opportunity do you foresee for him the last six games?) – “Now that we’re further away from his injury, hopefully he’s healthier than what he was. I think last week, that could not have been easy for him. We want to stretch the field with him. It’s hard when they know he’s not probably 100 percent. I know he’s pushing and trying to give us everything he has. We’ve had opportunities where he does get behind the defense and we can’t get the ball to him. It’s a little frustrating probably for me. He doesn’t say much about it. We want to be able to take advantage of the fact that he gets behind the DBs and we haven’t been able to do that so far.”
(Did you have a chance to watch the Colts yesterday, and what was your takeaway if you did?) – “I watched a little bit. I mean, I was bouncing around watching a lot of different games. It’s rare that you get those type of Sundays where you can watch the Red Zone Channel and stuff, which is always fun for somebody that’s massively ADD. That thing is bouncing around all over the place. It’s great. (laughter) Watching them, you could see Andrew Luck is looking like what he used to look like. (His) arm strength looks good. And everybody else kind of starts feeding off of that and their defense is playing fast. They’re making a lot of good plays and creating turnovers and flying around and getting to the ball and creating negative plays. I mean, there’s a reason why they’re winning games.”
(You’re part of quite a pack at 5-5. What’s your take on the standings?) – “I don’t know, I feel like this is a repeat of what we’ve said the last two years. This is what it is. That’s the NFL. That’s what everybody wants, right? You don’t want to be where you’ve got 10 games down and the last six it was already determined. (If that was the case), like, why watch? This is what it is. This is what it always is. It’s just who can have the best six-game season.”
(As you consider what to do with QB Ryan Tannehill, do the struggles the offense has had recently factor into that at all?) – “I think a lot of our struggles have come from not taking advantage of opportunities when we’ve had them. It hasn’t been one guy. I can’t say it like, ‘This is the reason.’ It’s easy to go to the quarterback. And I know there’s been times where Brock (Osweiler) has been in the right spot, made the right throw and we don’t finish the play. Or we have what we want and the protection breaks down so fast that he has no opportunity. Really, it comes down to our whole group has to play better. If we do that, no matter who’s back there, it gives us a better chance.”
(What are one or two things that make you think that you guys will play better this six-game stretch here?) – “I like this group. This group works, man. This group does a great job in practice. I mean, they practice hard. They give max effort as far as knowing what’s going on, understanding the game plan, understanding how we want to play as a team. We went 10 straight games and it’s probably going to be good when guys get back of getting a little bit of a refresher. You got to take a breath, you got to watch some football, and you can see that a lot of the same things that we’re going through is happening in other places. And it’s just who can pull it together and who can stay healthy enough these last six games to make a move.”
(What kind of feedback have you gotten from Owner Stephen Ross over the last 8-10 weeks?) – “He’s been great. Every time I see him after a game or talk to him during the week, ‘Just keep grinding. Don’t think too much about injuries.’ I think he looks at that of we’ve lost some good players. That’s something that is always unfortunate. He can see those big plays when they were occurring with Albert (Wilson) and what we get from Jakeem (Grant) and when we were hitting some deeper throws with Ryan (Tannehill) in there. He sees all of that stuff and when those guys aren’t there anymore, he understands that we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to try to move the ball and win the game.”
(What do you think it says about this team that you guys are still in the thick of it given everything that’s happened?) – “I mean, that’s what we wanted. We wanted guys that’ll battle for an entire season. Give ourselves a chance in December to create our own destiny. That’s what we wanted. When we started this thing, you never know how it’s going to shake out. You never know the injury situation. Who knows what’s going to happen? You never know. No matter who’s available and who’s not available, as long as your locker room is tight and those guys work hard and stick together, it gives yourselves a chance.”
(On the one guy you acquired last week, what did you, Executive Vice President of Football Operations Mike Tannenbaum and General Manager Chris Grier like as far as skill set with WR Brice Butler?) – “He’s a bigger guy. (He has) good speed (and) can go up and get the ball. At the time, we didn’t know where DeVante (Parker) was going to be. We didn’t know how quickly he’d able to come back. Jakeem (Grant) was really playing ‘X’ for us for the most part. Him and DeVante were really splitting that because DeVante would be out and Jakeem would kind of help him out and Kenny (Stills) was bouncing all over the place. We just felt like it was somebody with good size and just a different type of body type. We did like the fact that he is a bigger guy and can go up and get it and can stretch the field. That was interesting.”
(You said QB Ryan Tannehill is getting up to 50 yards throwing the ball?) – “Yeah, he can throw it down the field now. It looks good. It looks good. It’s just all about how many times. It’s always just constantly that conversation of, ‘How are you feeling?’ I’m sure it’s annoying to him. I’ll ask the same question so many times where he’s like, ‘Enough.’ But I don’t know how he feels. I’ve just got to go off what he tells me.”
(Was QB Ryan Tannehill here every day during the bye working out?) –“I think there were a few days where he was off, to where it’s like the compliance of the bye week rules and things like that. I know (from) Thursday on, I wasn’t around him, so …”
(CB Bobby McCain?) – “He’s still in the protocol.”
(DE Andre Branch, I know he had a shoulder issue. Is that something that could impact him?) – “I asked him if he was all right. He said he was more upset that he missed a sack. Maybe that played a little part in it. It’s football. He’s going to be banged up.”
