Adam Gase – August 17, 2016
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Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Head Coach Adam Gase
(On his take on some scuffles at practice today) – “It’s football. It happens. I don’t know. No one got hurt. I don’t want that happening like every day but it’s going to happen every once in a while. When we get into that bubble, it seems like it gets interesting.”
(On if players are tired of going against each other on the last day of camp) – “I don’t think so. I think it was just one guy makes a play and starts talking. Bobby (McCain’s) not going to take that. It just kind of got heated from there. The wide outs are protecting their guy and the DBs protect their guy and that’s what happens.”
(On if practice ended early and why) – “Just going into it, I had been thinking about it if we came out and were flying around. I didn’t really say anything to any of the players, as far as making a deal with them or anything; but just thought we had about three periods left. We had a situation in a special teams period and I just thought if we were flying around and executing and doing things right, we’d give (Andrew) Franks a shot to end camp the right way.”
(On how he feels about what was accomplished during training camp) – “Well, I love the energy level that we came out with every day. I felt like the execution got better. This was probably our best week as far as our consistency on both sides of the ball. It was good work when we were in pads. I think now it’s just got to be the next step – playing well in a preseason game and then building off of that.”
(On if everybody that is healthy will play on Friday night) – “Yes, we are going to try to play as many guys as we can. Obviously we still have walkthrough to get through, which I’ve actually been in a situation where we’ve lost a guy in a walkthrough. It’s hard to believe but it happens. We’ll go down there and hopefully we can get everybody out there.”
(On how long the offense will play on Friday night) – “I’m not setting anything. We’re playing and then whenever I feel like taking them out, I’ll take them out.”
(On how important it is for QB Ryan Tannehill to have a clean pocket) – “For any quarterback, they’d love to be able to just stand back there and hold onto the ball for an hour. But the reality of the NFL is (it’s going) to collapse quick no matter what line you have. You have to be decisive (and) get rid of the ball quick. We’ve got to call good plays where we can put our offensive line into a good position. I felt like last week we kind of had a couple of ball-holders in there early, trying to get a couple of plays, and we probably put them in a bad spot with the limited number of snaps they had. This week, hopefully I do a better job as far as putting our guys in a better position.”
(On if QB Ryan Tannehill doesn’t have an opportunity to do as much because he has fewer chances to make plays without a clean pocket) – “Right, but I’m looking at a guy that’s not afraid to stand in there. I’m pretty sure that anybody who has watched his tape the last four years (has seen that) he’ll stand back there and try to hold onto that thing and get the ball out. We’d love it to where we get through a game and limit the hits and sacks and pressures. That’s what every team is trying to do.”
(On how he would assess G Billy Turner during camp and bouncing between guard and tackle) – “I think he’s done a good job. It’s something that we’re always looking for in our offensive linemen – flexibility. I know I’ve said it before as far as, when you go to game day, you better have a bunch of guys that can move all over the place and know what to do because you never know what’s going to happen. He’s done a good job of … his execution as far as knowing what to do has been really good. The physical nature of it has been good; we just have to keep working on some of the stuff that he’s been doing at tackle.”
(On what the next step is for QB Brandon Doughty) – “We still had a few group mental lapses to where when he can get to the point where he starts to see something is not right, he can get everybody re-grouped and organized and in the right formations. We had a couple of formation busts (on Friday night) to where he didn’t notice it until the play was over and going, ‘Uh, oh.’ When you take that next step, where you’re controlling everybody, (I think) that’s his next step. I feel like he’s really comfortable in there. I have no reservations about calling anything. I feel like he can just roll. But I think that next step of, ‘Yeah, he has it,’ but when he gets to that point where he knows everybody else’s job is and he can make sure we’re all good, that’s going to be the next step for him.”
(On how likely it is that G/T Laremy Tunsil will get first team reps on Friday at Dallas) – “We’re still kind of toying with what we want to do there, early in the game. Like I said, I’m not putting an actual snap count on how many plays the offense is going to play with the ones. We’re going to talk about that tonight and then revisit it again tomorrow and see what we want to do as far as who is starting, who is going in when (and) how many guys we want to put with the ‘one’ offense. It could be five guys the entire time or it could be seven or eight guys, moving around. Nothing is really set right now but I think we’re starting to get a little bit of an idea. We just have to put it in pen. Right now it’s in pencil.”
(On if he’s going to treat this as the first preseason game for some of the guys that didn’t play last week like RB Arian Foster) – “Yes, pretty much. I’m not going to go out there and be like, ‘Hey, I want you to take 20 snaps.’ I’m going to be smart, especially with him. With his history as far as playing a lot of football, I mean how much do any of us really need to see? We know what he can do. He’s been a very successful running back in this league. I want to get him in a rhythm with the guys up front and trying to do some things to where he gets comfortable playing at the line of scrimmage because he’s been in a huddle offense for most of his career. When you get into a game and you start doing the on-the-ball stuff, it’s just a different feel. You feel like it’s moving faster, but it’s not always as fast as you think. There’s a little bit of a pace to it.”
(On if he feels like he’s any closer to establishing an identity up front along the offensive line) – “I think we’re still trying to figure it out. I have an idea of what direction we’re headed, but now it’s about finding the right five. And is that the right five for what we think we’re going to be? We’re still in that process. We have some time here – I think we play September 11th so we still got a few more weeks.”
(On RB Arian Foster’s intelligence) – “I feel like it’s something that I didn’t really know about him. Him coming in, in training camp, not being here in the spring, and how fast he picked (everything) up, I guess I wasn’t anticipating that. But then you think, (he’s a) veteran player. I remember being around him in the Pro Bowl and just talking to him and being like, ‘Man, this guy is really sharp.’ When we got him in here, I felt like by the time he came off PUP, he knew what to do. He’s probably one of the guys that we have the fewest amount of mental issues (with). It’s really, for him, just fine tuning some of the details of what we are looking for. He’s done a great job. He’s great when we meet as an offense as far as the skill guys and go through routes and talk about things that happened in practice. You can see when you tell him something, it’s like locked in there and you don’t get that same mistake again.”
(On what he is looking for from QB Ryan Tannehill in the second preseason game) – “Really, for the whole offense, it’s like, ‘Let’s move the ball.’ We had seven plays (last week at the New York Giants) and punted both times. Really, they (were) negative plays. We just didn’t do anything. We need to move the ball. I’m not going to say, ‘Hey, we have to score two touchdowns or have 10 points,’ it’s just, let’s move the ball, let’have positive plays (and) put our defense in some good positions. Field position wise, we weren’t helping anybody last game, especially the first five series. We need to do a better job of being consistent (and) move the ball down the field whether it be the run game, short passing game (or) throwing the ball down the field. Whatever it is, let’s figure out a way to move the ball.”
(On the four turnovers the defense forced last week and if that surprised him after not seeing many in practice) – “I don’t think so because when you watch how our guys practice, they’re flying around and always trying to strip the ball. ‘VJ’ (Defensive Coordinator Vance Joseph) does a good job of setting up these turnover drills. You see every once in a while in individual, we kind of set a little time (aside) where on the offensive side, we’re doing ball security and on the defensive side, we’re doing a turnover drill or a tackling drill. The mentality is there; they talk about it a lot. Just seeing those guys fly around and we keep talking about, ‘If you go 100 miles an hour and you hit a guy right and you’re flying to the ball, good things happen.’ I guess it wasn’t a surprise. There were six balls on the ground, I think, for the Giants. I anticipate the way we practice that this could be something we end up doing throughout the season.”
(On if he is trying to work or change any of QB Ryan Tannehill’s mechanics) – “He’s not a guy that you have to really mess with his mechanics. What we try to work on with him is more feel in the pocket – you see us do a lot of individual work with that – because we try to make it chaotic. We try to make it feel like you’ve got guys coming all over the place, how can you slide, how can you feel – the guy that you don’t see – how can you feel that he’s coming. We try to work on more things like that. I feel like when we got here, just watching him throw, I felt good about where he was mechanically. We tweaked just a couple things that were minor that really he brought up himself. I felt like he was in a real good place mechanically when we got here.”
(On why the Wide 9 causes so many complications in the run game even though it was designed for pass rushing) – “When those guys come off the edge, they’re coming so hard. The way the inside players penetrate, what happens is when you run an inside zone play and those guys are penetrating, the running back has to stop his feet and the linebackers can flow to the ball. It just feels like (for the running back), you stop and then all of a sudden you’ve got more guys on you. When you’ve got those edge guys coming off the edge as hard as they do and those tackles are trying to come at them, it’s just constant penetration and they’re setting the edge. These guys, especially our ones, you watch that and you feel like there’s nowhere to go. You just feel bottled up all the time. The more we work on it, especially going forward; we’re trying to script periods to game plan some of this stuff to give our defense what they are going to see. Yesterday we tried to do that and still, they made some really good plays. We were trying to run plays to take advantage of what their scheme is but they played them right and they played physical so it made it tough on the offensive side.”
(On the Wide 9’s emphasis of getting upfield and if that puts pressure on the linebackers, primarily the inside linebacker) – “A little bit because it’s on speed and being able to tackle. But when you have a (running back) that has to stop and restart and you’ve got a guy like Kiko (Alonso) coming downhill as fast as he does, historically he’s been a good tackler. I know we had a couple of misses the other night but that’s that first preseason game and live hitting. I think it’s only going to get better. I think everybody is trying to learn how to play off each other, too. I think this will be a good week for those guys to kind of get the feel for how that (defensive) front is going to play. Really, I think we’re going to have one guy remaining that was in that front this game from last week. So it’s going to be three new guys for our linebackers to get used to fitting off of.
(On if tackling is a concern, especially for the linebackers) – “I think the system that we have set up as far as what we’re going to be working on, some of the drills that we’ve been doing and making that emphasis that we are going to spend time working on tackling in practice. I think you guys have seen some of the different types of bags that we’ve been using and some of the drills that we’ve been doing that may have looked different. (Defensive Coordinator) Vance (Joseph) and (Applied Innovations) Mike Wahle did a great job as far as researching some things to where we could bring in some stuff to try to help our defensive players just be a consistent tackling team. Let’s not be one of those teams that’s in the bottom half of missed tackles. I think we’re going to see this pay off. I was a little surprised we had this many missed tackles (in the Giants game) because I really felt like we were making some good progress in those individual periods. Moving forward, I’m just seeing it get better as we go.”
(On if he expects that tackling emphasis in practice to continue from training camp into the regular season) – “Yes, I mean we never ended up going live on anything (in training camp) but we can still do all of our work in individual.”
