Kenyan Drake – December 9, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Postgame – New England
Miami Dolphins RB Kenyan Drake (transcribed by Paige Jefferson and Danny Chavez)
(On the game-winning touchdown.) – “It’s just something that we practiced every Saturday in walkthroughs. Obviously, in a situation (like that), you never know what would happen. It was just by the grace of God we were able to hold our composure and just make a play.”
(Before you scored, was there a time during that run where you thought “Wow! This could really work?”) – ”Until I got in the end zone … I mean honestly, I’m sitting before you all and I still don’t believe it. I just saw it was ‘Gronk’ (Rob Gronkowski) in front of me and I was just like ‘Look, I’ve got somewhere to be.’ So I had to get in the end zone.”
(You said you’ve practiced this a lot obviously but how often does it actually work or look good in practice?) – “The funny thing is it’s a walkthrough. We don’t practice it a ton. They make bets (between) themselves and say “Oh somebody might go the wrong way. Somebody might not get the pitch” The fact that (Coach Gase) called it in this critical situation and put the trust in his players to go out there and make the play, I’m just glad we all took care of our business and we ended up on the right side of that victory ”
(How does Magic City Miracle sound to you?) – “I love it. At the end of the day, I wish this was the end all, the be all; but we have a whole other game to play next week. We are going to enjoy this for 24 hours, but at the end of the day, let’s just take it one game at a time.”
(I know it’s hard to look at the big picture 10 minutes after this craziness but you may have set your season with this play.) – “We are 7-6 right now. We still have an uphill battle. We have to continue to be very gritty, hard-nosed, never-say-die attitude, and continue to get these wins.”
(Describe that celebration for us. What’s it like being in the middle?) – “I threw the ball in the stands so I know I’m going to get a fine from the NFL but I’m going to take that one on the chin. (laughter) To be able to celebrate this with my family, these players in here, these coaches, the fans, the city, it means the world to me.”
(Does this further prove that this is the house of horrors for the Patriots?) – “They have a hard time coming down here and playing down here. Give them all of the credit, they came out and played a great game offensively, defensively, the special teams getting two blocked punts. They put themselves in every situation to win this game but, like I said, we’ve got somewhere to be. We see the bigger picture. God works in mysterious ways so we continue to follow Him and lead the charge.”
(At what point did you see that you had a chance?) – “When I got up ‘Gronk’ (Rob Gronkowski) and I saw nobody else behind me, I knew I couldn’t get caught from behind and ‘Gronk’ was the only person in front of me so I had to get in the end zone.”
(What is the play called when he comes in from the coach? What is it?) – “It’s called Boise.”
Kenny Stills – December 9, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Postgame – New England
Miami Dolphins WR Kenny Stills (transcribed by Daniel Chavez)
(What is it about you guys at home? Last week you pull out the victory, Tennessee lightning delay 7 hours, Chicago the overtime game, the Jets and the Jerome Baker touchdown. What’s going on here? You guys are almost unbeatable.) – “We take pride in playing good football at home. Obviously we’ve got to be able to do it on the road too, but we’ve just got to come together as a team, as a unit, believing in each other, trusting each other and you can tell out there on the field.”
(Kenny, what do you see when you’re going through this? What are you thinking? What are you seeing on the game-winning play?) – “You don’t really think. You just go out there and try to execute the play. I was just talking about how we do it every Saturday. It’s something that we go through, last plays of the game, and we’ve been doing it for, what, 14 weeks now plus OTAs and stuff. So it’s just one of those things we came out and executed and ‘K.D.’ (Kenyan Drake) made a great play.”
(So you guys actually practice something like this?) – “Yeah. Every Saturday.”
(How does the Miami miracle sound to you?) – “The Miami miracle? I like that but it means nothing if we don’t finish the season strong and find our way into the playoffs.”
Adam Gase – December 9, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Postgame – New England
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Adam Gase
Your reaction to the last play?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: We executed it. (laughter) You have to something for those kind of situations. We work on them every Friday and Saturday and it’s boring because you might go three years without calling them and those guys stuck with it, especially this year, and they executed that one for sure.
Was that exactly how you drew it up?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: Yeah.
They had TE Rob Gronkowski back there on the Hail Mary. Did you notice that? Did you see that as a vulnerability?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I think it was more … all of us noticed it right at the end because we weren’t thinking we were going that … pushing it down the field like that, so we didn’t really think that was relevant to us.
Is there any comparable moment in your career that you can think of?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I’ve seen a couple of these. I’ve been lucky enough to be on this side of the ball. I’ve been on the other side of the ball before. But as a head coach, this is first time for sure.
What’s the feeling in the locker room after a game like that?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I mean, it’s a lot of excitement. Those guys are fired up. They did a great job the whole game, just sticking together. Things don’t always go your way. The ups and downs of the game, these guys just keep fighting.
What about QB Ryan Tannehill and what he was able to accomplish after he got stepped on?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I mean I don’t think there’s any question whether or not he’s tough. It seemed like after that, he did a good job of just kind of avoiding the hits that he was taking in the first half. He was moving at the right time. We kind of screwed a couple things up. We had a lot of things that we wanted to get to that involved him, but got a little nervous to call them just because he wasn’t moving like he normally would.
How much was QB Ryan Tannehill hurt?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: He was in good pain. You saw how his ankle … that probably didn’t feel good.
Special teams, you always pride yourself on strong special teams.
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: Yeah, I think they got us on obviously those rushes. I’ll have to get those cleaned up. I thought (Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren) Rizzi did a good job at halftime and at least adjusting the protection, making sure that didn’t happen (again). We probably lost a little production in that unit in the second half, but this is something that at least when we go back on Monday, we’ll be able to fix and get cleaned up and make sure that we can adjust for any other teams down the road.
With the defense, obviously you were shorthanded today going against Patriots QB Tom Brady.
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: Their job is to fight 60 minutes and try to keep those guys out of the end zone as much as possible and offensively, we have to score one more point (than them). They had some big stops in the game and we didn’t take advantage of them on offense. There were a couple times where they drove the ball down the field but that’s going to happen against Tom (Brady) and his crew.
You went to a more rugby-style punt in the second half. Is that something you had time in practice this week to work on?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I mean we’ve been working on it all year. That was the first time it really kind of came up.
Not sure if you’ve been asked this, but your thoughts on the last play and the emotions that you went through during that?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I think I was really mad at DeVante (Parker) at one point because I thought he had a chance to turn and run but he made a good decision. Those guys executed as well as you could with bodies around. I mean, when we practice that stuff, it’s usually on air and you don’t really know how it’s going to turn out. So those guys did a good job of slowing themselves down and doing the right things as far as pitching when they needed to pitch and then Kenyan (Drake) realized that he had a lane and took it.
What does a win like this do for your football team with three games left, looking forward? It’s got to give you a big emotional lift, I would assume?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: Yeah, basically we’re playing one week at a time right now. Any loss for us could be the end. So we just have to make sure that we refocus on Wednesday and get things cleaned up and get ready for the next one.
Where did RB Brandon Bolden fit in your game plan?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: We started using him last week. We’ve been kind of waiting to use him. We had some things for him last week. We got him in there on a touch and I think (Kenyan) Drake and him had another play that didn’t work out too well. He runs hard. He was a really good running back coming out of college. We’ve been kind of waiting to use him. He’s so valuable on special teams that he’s getting a lot of snaps there but we’ve got enough packages with him in them that when he touches the ball, he can be explosive.
Did you consider anything else for the last play, like a regular Hail Mary or anything?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: No. That was the one.
