Adam Gase – August 7, 2018
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(What can you tell us about the decision to sign RB Jeremy Langford? He’s a guy that you’re obviously familiar with.) – “Really, we had an extra spot. We felt like we needed a little bit more depth there really for the preseason games. It’s somebody that can come in here and he’s familiar with the terminology. He’s able to jump right back in. He’s healthy. He was coming off some injuries in the past. Last year when we brought him in, I think we were still a couple of weeks away. And then he ended up going somewhere else. We felt like we needed another body at that position to come in and compete and we thought he was a good guy for us to sign.”
(On that position, obviously as you explained, you want to see some of the young kids with the ones at times. We saw RB Kalen Ballage there today. How would you assess his camp overall?) – “(He’s) learning. It’s a lot and especially if he gets in there with the ones, being with Ryan (Tannehill), he’s going probably a little quicker tempo. I think between David (Fales) and Brock (Osweiler), they’ll slow it down occasionally and make sure they over-communicate because they know there are a lot of young guys in those groups. They want guys to know what to do. They don’t want … If a guy has a miscue and he doesn’t know what to do, that’s going to hurt them more than anybody. So I think those guys slow it down where Ryan, he’s going. It’ll be 10 out of 11 knowing what to do.”
(Can you talk a little bit about the red zone offense, your impressions so far and if you feel like you have more options there this year than you had in your first two years?) – “It’s hard to tell sometimes in practice with how good you could be. When you watch it, you’re going, ‘Okay, there’s a lot of good things.’ It’s just the game changes so much when it’s the flow of the game. How is your running game that game? The concepts that you call. Right now it’s going against our defense and we may have some things that aren’t necessarily great against them, but we want to rep so the quarterbacks kind of get used to seeing certain patterns of the concepts that we have going on. A lot of the things that we’ve done so far have been positive. I do think we have a lot of options. It feels that way. It’s almost like who do you want to get the ball to? Especially with the running backs. I think they do a good job of if they get downhill fast and get low … Frank (Gore) had a couple of good runs the other day to where he kind of squeezed through some holes and Kenyan (Drake), the same thing. I think he got the edge a couple of times. An effective running game down there is always a positive because you keep yourself third and short. The last thing you want to do is get third and eight from the 16. There’s just not a lot of options.”
(You guys have had some good days on offense, some not so good days on offense. At what point do you want to see that consistency day in and day out?) – “I think a lot of times in training camp, it swings like that because if one side has a good day, then the other side probably didn’t have as good of a day. You see that jostling of just back and forth. I think anytime that if we would see three or four straight days of one side dominating the other side, there’s going to be concern, probably on my part more than anybody, because I have to look at the big picture. The fact that we’re competing and battling every day, that’s a good thing.”
(Are you comfortable with where your offense is at this stage?) – “Yes.”
(Can you expand a little bit about the position change of DE Robert Quinn as far as why it matters so much to have him up at defensive end as opposed to – there was another NFL team that obviously thought that he could do just fine at outside linebacker, but he’s clearly more comfortable in this spot. Can you just teach a little bit about that here?) – “I think this defense is really what he was raised in. I guess that’s the best way to put it. When he came in the league and this is what he did, it’s what he did in college and when you switch to a 3-4 defense, there’s some more mechanics that go along with that when all of a sudden now you’re standing up. I do think he’s comfortable having his hand in the dirt. He did a good job last year. I just don’t think he was comfortable doing that. Sometimes guys have a certain ability to get off the ball a certain way. Cam’s (Wake) stance might be a little different than his, but they’re successful doing it. I think he doesn’t have to worry about coverage and dropping and things like that. That’s a different role for him if he has to do that, and he was asked to do that a little bit last year.”
(Outside of the comfort level that everybody should have in this offense considering very few people are new, why do you think that this offense should be getting to the next level?) – “I like the chemistry that they’re developing. I like that the skill guys seem to be working together with the quarterback. It’s not like we have one guy out there and two other guys are in the locker room. They’re all working together. They’re all trying to help each other and I do think Ryan (Tannehill) understands about spreading the ball out and making sure we’re using everybody that’s involved in the offense. That’s really key. When the defense has to make sure they account for every guy that’s on the field, that causes them problems. That’s what opens up your running game. If you’ve got five guys in the offense that are threats in the passing game, all of a sudden ‘Hey, we have to play some kind Cover 2 look or middle field open.’ Now, you have a better box to run the ball. I think it’s really just the chemistry of that group is good right now. These guys are working together.”
(What has led to your discomfort right now? Is it just high expectations?) – “I don’t think I’m … I’m good with what’s going on. I like the direction we’re heading. Really, it’s going to be about what do we do in preseason games? How are we going to come together? How are we going to handle any kind of adversity? Are guys ready to step up? Sometimes in practice there’s less pressure, and all of a sudden you get in a game, you know one mistake can cost the whole team a game. Guys are working for that perfection part of it.”
(We saw TE Mike Gesicki make a great jumping catch but also maybe miss a block. It looked like he was mad at himself on one play. As a coach, how do you process, manage and eventually make game-day decisions when you get there – not preseason, but regular season – about how much to trust inexperienced or rookie players?) – “I think it comes down to putting all of the reps that they get in practice together plus the preseason games. Really, you want to start off with do they know what to do? Are they trying to use the right technique? Then, at the end of the day, you can you do it or not? I think that’s where our adjustments have to come in as coaches, to where if a guy can’t do a certain thing, let’s not ask him to do something that he’s going to really have problems with. Really, that’s where we’re at as a coaching staff of keep evaluating. We might start crossing things off of the list eventually. I think we want to get into games more before we do that, though.”
(Do you have guys blitz TE Mike Gesicki when he’s out there?) – “No. They went through a whole period today where they did pass protection. Today, we didn’t have as many plays, but there were more runs called and there was some of our two-minute stuff where we end up going seven-man protections where he has to stay in, and he’s had some one-on-one situations. Those are good for him. Every time he has trouble with a guy, we can learn off of that. He does a good job. He doesn’t get hung up on one bad play. He moves on to the next one very quickly.”
(What would you like to see from the first-team offense in the first preseason game?) – “I mean, we all want to think the same thing. You’re hoping for a nice 10-play touchdown drive. I don’t know how many of those I’ve had in my career. It never goes exactly as you want it.”
(Can you go into a season with baseline stats for a quarterback for you to make the playoffs?) – “No.”
(Why not?) – “It’s so team oriented. Really, at the end of the day, it comes down to turnover margin. As a group on offense, are we protecting the football? And on defense, are we taking it away? And both of those areas, if we obviously have any kind of improvement from last year, we’ll be in a better spot. That was ridiculous.”
(One word that QB Brock Osweiler used to describe his training camp so far was “tremendous.” Do you agree with that?) – “That’s him personally? He loves the coaching, is that what you’re saying? (laughter). I mean I don’t know what he said. He’s a positive guy. I think Brock does a good job of focusing on what he’s trying to do. He has a purpose for every day at practice. I think this is what I almost forgot about him is that he does go out there with a purpose. That’s next-level type things. A lot of times a lot of guys just go out, here’s the period and I’ve run the play that the coach called. I think he’s got a different mind-set sometimes. Ryan (Tannehill) is kind of in that area too. He’s going out there to work on things. Plays might not go a certain way … I know there were two or three things today that they talked about before they went out there that came up that they were able to work on. To me, Brock is saying that because he has a good feel for the offense. I think he likes the guys that he’s rolling with, whether it’s that second or third group, and that confidence allows those other guys to be confident. So when he’s throwing the ball, I think those guys are on the same page. I think he’s having fun and he’s having a lot of success, especially when we do those move-the-ball periods, like when we did the scrimmage. You see why he was playing in real games. He’s calm. He doesn’t panic when things break down. He has outs if something doesn’t go as planned. He should have a good feeling right now.”
(So during the preseason, do you give QB Brock Osweiler snaps with the second team, and then Fales snaps with the second team? Or are they going to roll like they’re rolling out there today?) – “I’m not going to do that because I want each guy to get into a little bit of a rhythm. We’re trying to figure out how we want to do it for this game. We’ve had a couple – between (Offensive Coordinator) Dowell (Loggains) and (Quarterbacks Coach) Bo (Hardegree) and myself – a couple of discussions of how we want to handle this. We just want to make sure that we give both of these guys legit opportunities to where – you want to say on paper – work an equal amount of time with each group. I don’t know if that’s realistic because every game goes so different; but our goal is to be like, ‘you have this series.’ And maybe it’s two series in a row, then the next guy comes in for one series. I think it’s really going to come down to how many plays per series that we’re talking about.”
(Are these games the most important thing for those guys in that battle?) – “I think so. I think it starts on the practice field, but when we get going and it’s live tackling and you can get sacked, it’s just a better measuring stick.”
(In regards to Thursday’s game, how will you instruct your players regarding the national anthem?) – “I’m not instructing anybody for anything.”
(How do you expect to use QB Ryan Tannehill in the preseason games?) – “We’ve got to talk to him first before we do anything. I think I told you, we have a very sketched-out plan but we have nothing set in stone yet, and we haven’t gotten there yet with him. We still have a walk-through this afternoon; we’ve got a walk-through tomorrow. We’ll sit down and kind of talk through stuff. I know what he’s going to say already. He wants to get out there and get going because in his mind, these are important. Really, that’s the mindset. Every quarterback I’ve ever been around that gets put in these situations, they want to be out there to play because they want to get that feel back of a real game because they know when that first game comes, they’ve got to be on. It can’t be like, we’re going to feel our way into the season.”
(So if you do get a player who kneels, what happens next?) – “Talk to somebody else about that. I’m coaching football. I’m not dealing with all of this.”
(How is CB Tony Lippett?) – “We’ll see. We’re going to evaluate him and we’ll kind of see what happens. When I saw him on the field, he looked irritated. I don’t know exactly what happened. After this, I’ll be able to go in there and kind of find out what’s going on.”
