Dowell Loggains – August 13, 2018
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Monday, August 13, 2018
Offensive Coordinator Dowell Loggains
(Why do you think it was feisty out there today?) – “It’s the second day after an off day. Yesterday wasn’t an intense practice. Everyone is getting tired of hitting each other in camp. That’s what happens in the NFL about this time every year (with) every team.”
(How would you assess the work of the offense in the preseason opener?) – “There was good and bad obviously. I was really pleased with the protection with the ones. We left some yards on the field in the run game that way. It was good to see ‘17’ (Ryan Tannehill) get out there. I know he was really amped up for the game. You could just feel his energy and the energy in his feet. It was really good for him to get out there. I was pleased for the most part with how they performed.”
(How do you think QB David Fales performed on Thursday?) – “I thought he did a pretty good job. He made a couple of really good throws. He got us into a couple of plays. The post he threw to ‘82’ (Francis Owusu) was a really good throw. We keep telling these guys, how we’ll make decisions is the guy that gets the team in the end zone. He’s done a good job with that stuff. He needs to continue to show and improve every week.”
(Outside of his fumble, how do you think RB Kalen Ballage performed?) – “He was solid. The one big emphasis we put when starting the season was we need to eliminate all of the pre-snap penalties. You guys have seen that. We’ve got guys taking laps, running sprints after practice, and the turnovers. You guys have heard it. It’s a cliché, but it’s real. To win in this league, you have to find ways not to lose. When you put the ball on the ground on a third-down conversion … That’s the other thing, when you’ve run over two guys and sent two guys to the sideline, and then you’re hurdling people – it’s a great show of athleticism but we’ve got to keep working with him. He’s got to keep getting better, and he will.”
(What’s going to be the best way to minimize the pre-snap penalty issue?) – “Number one, these guys need to understand it’s not going to be tolerated. You’re not going to be here if that keeps happening. We have to clean it up. The ones did a good job with it. We had the one holding call, but it wasn’t all on ‘No. 70’ (Ja’Wuan James). The guard snapped out on a guy and pushed him and ‘70’ has to fit his hands up inside better. It needs to be this week that we need to be better with that. We don’t need to have any pre-snap penalties. We’re going to keep preaching it and there’s going to be consequences when it’s not happening or when it starts to happen.”
(Did any of the young guys catch your eye Thursday?) – “I thought Bryce Petty did a nice job. He came in and had a couple of checks and showed great energy, and kind of rallied the troops that way. I think all of them kind of flashed. The first one to me is just get out there and let them experience playing in the NFL for the first time. Let’s see how they do in Week 2, Week 3 and Week 4. The one thing we preach around here is don’t make the same mistakes twice. There’s going to be times when they mess up, like Kalen (Ballage) and these guys, but you’ve got to continue to make new mistakes.”
(How would you assess Mike Gesicki’s progress in terms of his blocking, since it’s such a hot topic of conversation in the media?) – “He was down at 9-on-7 today and I went to one-on-one, and (Head) Coach (Adam) Gase went to 9-to-7, so when he walked down to one-on-ones, it was like, ‘Hey, get out here. We didn’t draft you to block. We drafted you to come catch touchdowns in the red area.’ And he’s had his best days of practice — you guys have seen it — in the red area catching passes. We’ll keep getting better with that. He’s working really hard. The good thing is he’s not afraid to stick his face in there. We didn’t draft him to be a killer at the point of attack. We drafted him to make plays in the red area, convert third downs, make explosive plays on first and second down. He’s going to have to learn how to block and stuff, but we’ll put him in good situations once the bullets are real. We’ll keep putting him out there and letting him go through these struggles. Blocking our defensive ends, those are good players.”
(What’s the key to being more efficient and effective on third downs? I know you weren’t here previously but that’s been really an issue and a point of emphasis.) – “You can’t be frustrated when it’s third-and-11 and you don’t convert. You’ve got to look back. You don’t treat the symptom; treat the problem. If you’ve got a negative-yard run or pass up a progression, it’s second-and-11. If you pass on a progression on second-and-11 and now all of a sudden you’re in third-and-11. The key to that is you’ve got to be really good on first and second down. You’ve got to stay efficient and stay ahead of the chains. You can’t have pre-snap penalties. You can’t have holding penalties. You’ve got to be really disciplined in your progressions at the quarterback position and make sure you keep moving the chains. We talk to the quarterbacks all of the time about being aggressive in the timing of the play, so don’t pass up one to move to the second progression when one is open. That way, you have the ability to get in third-and-6 or less. We’ll be OK in third-and-6 or less, but you’ve got to be pretty dang good at quarterback and a pretty good offense to continually convert third-and-11 and third-and-10s.”
(What do you like about RB Senorise Perry when he gets in there?) – “’Coach Perry.’ Wow, he’s come a long way. We call him ‘Coach Perry.’ We had him in Chicago and he was predominantly a special teams player, but the one thing he’s done is he’s done a great job of studying and learning. He’s definitely a competitive guy. He plays with a lot of intensity. Where he’s come from, 2015 to when I got here, has been shocking to me, his knowledge of the offense. I’m really proud of how he’s learned and worked. He’s become a guy that we … He’s dependable. He’s available.”
(Is that how RB Senorise Perry got the nickname ‘Coach Perry’ from?’ Just the knowledge of the offense?) – “Well, it was. David Fales was with us in Chicago and when he was a young player, he made a lot more mistakes than he makes now. Now, he has an understanding. He’s over there telling, grabbing people. When he was in Chicago, David Fales would take him one-on-one during walkthroughs and be like, ‘Ah, what do you got here on this play?’ Now all of a sudden ‘Coach Perry’ is correcting people. Just to see him grow as a player and an individual has been pretty cool and I’m excited to see how the rest of the preseason goes for him.”
(With two players you have a history with, QB David Fales and RB Senorise Perry, how much of it is just comfort level in the offense?) – “It’s comfort level and the one thing David has made a huge … He’s a lot stronger than he was in 2015. He’s worked really hard with our strength staff here in the summer. He committed to pilates and all these other things, and you can tell he really put an emphasis on strengthening his core. And it’s shown up. He is a stronger player. I think it’s helping him be efficient in the offense and run it. It also helps when you’ve been in the offense for three or four years. You start to have a real understanding. That’s how David is going to make this roster, make this team and compete for the (backup) spot is he needs to master this stuff and know it inside and out.”
(What were your thoughts on the situation involving QB Ryan Tannehill and RB Kalen Ballage at practice Sunday and how Ryan handled it?) – “Ownership. Ownership. We keep telling these guys, Coach Gase can only tell them so many times. Eventually it’s their responsibility to control this stuff. We can only say it so many times. It means more if all of a sudden you bust a protection and the quarterback throws you out. There’s no one you want to disappoint (less) than your teammates and when you walk in the huddle and walk in the locker room, those guys have to trust you. So the level of accountability, that’s where Ryan took a step. It needs to be understood that if you step in the huddle with the ones and you get that opportunity, which a lot of rookies don’t get, you have to earn that right. So for Ryan to hold him accountable, I think that was absolutely the right thing to do.”
(How have you seen QB Ryan Tannehill grow in that area?) – “It’s hard for me to speak because this is my first year obviously, but for him to take that step and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t acceptable. This isn’t the standard we set.’ That’s what needs to happen. It needs to happen more offensively. It needs to happen on defense, and when things start to go that way, it has to come from the players. A coach can only do so much. We’re not in the huddle with them. The coaches aren’t the ones creating penalties. It’s our job to put them in situations to be successful, but they need to hold each other accountable and set the standard for themselves.”
(In terms of the red zone offense on this team, what do you see is the upside? How much talent do you see when you line up at the 20-yard line and you have all of those options?) – “Most importantly is staying efficient and getting down there; but we have some guys that should be … Danny Amendola has been a really good red-area guy for his whole career. I think the one thing that all good red-area teams do is they run the football well. You have to be able to run the football down there. That creates the one-on-ones for guys like Mike Gesicki and ‘11’ (DeVante Parker) and those guys to throw the ball outside the numbers, throw the fades, throw the back-shoulders and be able to create all those pick plays and all of the things this offense has done for a long time.”
(Does Head Coach Adam Gase have a separate playbook for the red zone, or is it just encompassed from the entire playbook?) – “Adam has a different playbook for everything. We definitely have a red-area package. For me, it’s been interesting. We were together in 2015; to get here and see where it’s at right now compared to when we got to Chicago and I got to see the ’12, ’13, ’14 tape when they were at Denver and we’re getting there where we’re getting it all in and we’re still not there. It’s probably operating about 60 percent and there’s still a lot of things that we haven’t gotten to and as we grew as an offense and we find out what each one of these players is … Coach will say, ‘Hey, this is what we’re going to do with this guy and this is what we’re going to do with this guy.’ We do create game-plan plays for those guys in different situations in the red area.”
(You guys have had some injuries at the tight end position, especially among the veterans and another one today. At what point does that become an issue? I know it gives the younger guys some playing time, but you kind of want to see those older guys too, right?) – “We’d love to see everybody. We’re going to worry about what we can control and we can’t control injuries. Our mentality is next man up. We can’t control that and we’re not going to spend a whole lot of time worrying about that because it should be a room that we’re getting better every day. We drafted two players in that room for a reason. Whoever is in there and whoever gets that opportunity better compete because it is a room that there is some competition in.”
(Do you feel like you’ve gotten a good look at TE A.J. Derby and TE MarQueis Gray? I know you saw them during OTAs and minicamp also.) – “I was with MarQueis in Cleveland in 2014 and Coach (Gase) has been around him. We have a good evaluation of him and A.J. He was here last year. So the most important thing is that we need to figure out these young guys as well. In the preseason, we’re not ready to make a determination on anyone at this point; but the more reps they can get, the more situations that they can get put in, they need all of it.”
(That tempo offense, it seems to me – I might be wrong – that you guys are doing more and more of it as training camp has gone on. It seems like you’re getting better at it, but can you take me through that and kind of how it looked in Tampa, and are you progressing at the up-tempo?) – “It’s something that Adam (Gase), it’s always been a big part of his offense. I don’t know if he huddled very much in 2013 and 2014 at all, and it was kind of a mixture in Chicago. It takes time. That’s the thing. In Denver, they had a little bit of time. We’re getting into year three, and it’s year three, four and five when all of a sudden, they have a complete understanding of that. It’s a big reason why coach liked Danny Amendola, is to be able to get him in there and operate in some of those no-huddle situations. We’ll be a team that huddles and we will run some no-huddle as well.”
(The Bucs won on Thursday night and the defense looked pretty strong against the offensive line. Do you any concerns with the offensive line right now with maybe the cohesion that they have?) – “No. I was actually pleased with our twos as well versus their ones. I thought they did a good job. I thought we did a good job in pass pro. The biggest thing that we wanted to see with our ones was not anything other than pre-snap penalties, sacks, turnovers. Go out there and get used to playing in a game together for the first time. Each week it needs to get better. We’re not going to be instant evaluators and make the evaluations based on that, but it is a good start for us.”
(Is it better at this point to have QB Ryan Tannehill mobile – obviously we saw it on that first play of the preseason game – but to have him mobile out there, is that something you’re looking to do a lot this year because of maybe some of the blocking depth that you might have?) – “He had a lot of success in 2016 on the move and doing those things. Obviously, he’s a good athlete, so we’ll continue to mix that stuff in as the defense allows us. We felt like we could get on the edge against Tampa and do all of those things and he did a pretty decent job. He obviously had the first play, an explosive pass right out of the gate on the move. It’s good for him to get out there. He does it in practice, but to do it in a game is completely different, just so he builds confidence in going out there and doing that. ”
