Adam Gase – October 3, 2018
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Would the release of DT Jordan Phillips have happened without the tirade? Was that the absolute last straw?) – “I don’t know. We’ve moved on already. I’m not going into details on that stuff. He’s not on our roster anymore.”
(With DE Cameron Malveaux, obviously both end and tackle, was that what made him appealing in terms of he has the size for both?) – “He’s done a lot for us. He knows a lot of different spots. We’ll figure out the best way to use him.”
(What about your defensive line gives you confidence to make this move going forward?) – “It’s a tough group. It’s a group that’s very prideful. They’ve got a certain way they do things. Those guys have been battling the last few weeks with less guys than what we started with. We’ll get healthy here quickly. Right now, the guys that we’ve got ready to roll, they’ll be ready to go.”
(With the changes you’ve had on both the offensive line and the defensive line here, is it fair to say that it starts up front this Sunday even more than usual?) – “I think it always starts up there. I don’t know if it’s any more than usual. I know that we’re looking to play better on both sides. Having a week to get ready for the game, that’ll be helpful for us. When you start throwing guys in and they haven’t really gotten a ton of reps with that first group, especially at center, that’s a tough spot to put a guy in. It’ll be good to get a full week’s worth with him and the quarterback and the rest of the guys.”
(On the offensive line, the other four guys are staying where you have them?) – “We’ll see.”
(Are you considering … I mean C/G Ted Larsen has worked at center before.) – “They’re working all over the place. We have to have contingency plans for a lot of different things. When you only go up and you have seven, and you’ve got to move somebody around (because) one guy goes down, you might have some moving pieces. We’ll see how it kind of shakes out for us.”
(Any further you can tell us on CB Bobby McCain?) – “He didn’t practice today.”
(Is CB Bobby McCain sidelined for weeks or days?) – “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
(Did you look at the C Wesley Johnson signing purely as depth or because he’s a starting-caliber player, do you want, at some point when he learns the system, to give him a chance to compete with C Travis Swanson?) – “I don’t know. I think that’s a ways down the road. Right now, it’s just trying to get caught up as fast as possible.”
(How is C Travis Swanson’s grasp of the offense? I think he’s been here three weeks.) – “Good. Really good. That’s usually … centers are really good about picking it up. They take whatever system they learned and they know how to translate it over and really know what’s important for them. It’s just, really a lot of times for them, it’s terminology change. But him being with (Offensive Line Coach) Jeremiah (Washburn) in the past, some of that has carried over to where he picked everything up really fast.”
(What was your assessment of C Daniel Kilgore before he was injured?) – “I thought he was playing well. He was steady for us. He was kind of like the anchor of that group and the leadership is hard to put a price on.”
(What do you like about C Travis Swanson?) – “When we got him in there, that’s a tough matchup for any center in the league when you’re going against the size – Danny Shelton – and the way that he can move guys around. I thought he held his own pretty good. Like I said, I wish we would have had a whole week to where he could have really got reps with those other guys so he could work with the guards and those guys could really play off each other. I thought he did good in the game and we had a good day of work today, so we’ll just keep trying to find a way to get better.”
(What happened to WR DeVante Parker at the end of last week?) – “It was weird. We thought he was fine and then it was his route. He just ran a route and didn’t really say anything, and then he just couldn’t go.”
(You’ve made in the last three years some pretty eye-opening roster moves in the middle of the season. Whether it was your intention or not, it can serve as a message to the team. Do you think any message has been received this week?) – “No, I don’t think that had anything to do with any kind of … There was no message behind this. It was just time for us to move on.”
(When you’ve had situations here, whether it’s a personnel move, weather-related or a tough loss, how do you know when your time is refocused and where you want them to be? Are there things in practice and meetings? Discussion, demeanor? How do you know?) – “I think in practice you can tell. Energy level. Today I felt like there was a really good energy level. Guys understood what happened, watching the film on Monday, getting another day away from it, coming back, resetting. We’re not going to sit here and keep pounding on what happened on Sunday. We fixed what we needed to fix. We addressed the things that we needed to address. We’ve moved on to the next opponent. I think guys have done a good job of getting themselves ready and when they came out to practice today, they were ready to go.”
(How would you assess LB Raekwon McMillan’s progress so far this season?) – “He’s a young player and is getting better every day. He’s trying to get better every day. The more things he sees, the better it is for us.”
(How would you evaluate QB Ryan Tannehill’s play Sunday?) – “We didn’t have a great game. There were some things I wish I would have done different. He felt the same way. We didn’t play good as an offense. Frank (Gore) probably played good. Besides that, a lot of guys struggled. We didn’t do anything we talked about.”
(WR DeVante Parker ran a route in the Friday practice, or was it …) – “Well, it’s like one of those things where on Friday, we couldn’t get him going. We were trying to get him going and we thought we were going to be all right. It just didn’t work out.”
(Was that something new for WR DeVante Parker?) – “It was out of nowhere.”
(Will QB Ryan Tannehill have to take on more vocal responsibilities on the offensive line as far as protections since you have a new center?) – “No. We’ll be able to do what we normally do.”
(What message, if any, have you given or would you give to RB Kenyan Drake?) – “Just keep practicing hard. I mean, we’ve got to get more than 47 plays in a game.”
(As long as CB Bobby McCain is out, you’ll have young corners you’ll be relying on there. Was the thinking that you’re good enough there with Torry McTyer and Cordrea Tankersley and Cornell Armstrong and you don’t need to find a veteran to fill in in interim?) – “Yes. I mean going to get a guy on the street that hasn’t done anything doesn’t really help you. Those guys know our system. They know what we want to do. They know how we want to play. That’s why they’re here. If you’re on the roster, you’re expected to be ready to go and contribute and we shouldn’t have too much of a drop-off.”
(Have you seen any signs that CB Cordrea Tankersley is in the right state of mind?) – “Yeah, he’s working. He’s working and he’s trying to get better. I think he’s trying to challenge on the scout team or if he’s getting reps with the first-team defense, he’s trying to challenge guys, get hands on them and stay tight in coverage. That’s what he just needs to keep doing. I think really trying to make a major push to contribute on special teams. I know he’s taking that very seriously and he’s trying to basically break through the door and just keep trying to get those guys’ attention.”
(Do you have a sense for what happened to CB Cordrea Tankersley?) – “That’s just the NFL. Sometimes guys come in and they go past you and it’s a battle. It could be one phase or the other. We feel good about him at corner and we need him to improve on special teams. Now, it might come up to where he plays. If he plays at corner, I’m good. And I think his special teams has improved, so we could use him there.”
(What more do you need to see out of DE Charles Harris? He has fewer snaps than DE Jonathan Woodard last game.) – “That’s kind of one of those things where when you play New England, you have to be careful about your substitutions. I thought (Defensive Line Coach) Kris (Kocurek) did a good job of making sure that we didn’t get caught with 12 guys on the field because if they don’t sub and you try to sub, now you’re asking for trouble. You’re going to get 12, 13 guys on the field and you’re going to have a problem. I think he got caught kind of in that little game that gets played to where that was not a planned deal to where it was said that this guy is going to get this many snaps. It just kind of worked out that way in the game.”
(You had CB Torry McTyer and S Maurice Smith in the secondary last week at times. What did you like from both of them and what did you see from both of them?) – “Any time you get thrown in there and you’re going against that quarterback, that’s tough for young players because he’s going to try to pick on you a little bit and take advantage of that. I thought those guys, they’ve played enough football now for us to where they know what to do. It’s just really at the end of the day, just pulling the trigger, trusting their training and trusting what they do at practice. We see a lot of good things at practice and when we get in a game, we just can’t (see) a drop-off. They’ve got to just trust what they’re doing.”
(How much has the turnover on the offensive line hindered what you can do running the ball?) – “It hasn’t. We kind of ran … The way Oakland was playing us was different and then last week we just got crushed. We need to be more physical at the point of attack. We have to execute our assignments better and a lot of things will get cleaned up.”
