Adam Gase – December 5, 2018
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Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(What can you tell us about CB Xavien Howard?) – “He’ll be week to week. We’re going to have to see how it goes the rest of the week. I’ll probably know more towards the end of the week whether or not he’s got a shot or not.”
(Is it CB Xavien Howard’s ankle?) – “No. It’s his knee.”
(Is this a result of when CB Xavien Howard went down in the game?) – “Yeah, I think it was on the second interception.”
(So are you not counting on CB Xavien Howard for this Sunday?) – “I don’t know yet.”
(What intrigued the front office and the scouts who have seen CB Dee Delaney, about his skillset?) – “We’re always looking for corners, especially with the way things have been going lately. We’re losing guys left and right and any time our guys have anybody that they really see as somebody that we can get our hands on and see for ourselves and see what they can bring to the table, we had the opportunity to do that. We thought it was a good guy for us to bring in.”
(And then if the two young guys already here need to play more on Sunday – CB Torry McTyer and CB Cornell Armstrong – what have each shown you this year?) – “We’ve had some good stuff happen usually in practice. They’ve gone through some experiences where they’ve learned a lot quickly. When you get thrown into the fire, there’s a lot of good receivers out there and good quarterbacks. They learn quick what they can do and what they can’t.”
(You talked Monday about how important takeaways have been for this team. What would be the challenges of going forward without CB Xavien Howard, particularly facing the Patriots?) – “What does he have, seven interceptions right now? I mean you have a guy that if you throw the ball at him and you’re inaccurate, he’s not just going to knock it down; he’s going to pick it off. He’s extremely valuable. He’s one of our best players, if not our best player on that side of the ball. It’s hard to say. That’s what this game is and that’s what the league is. We’ve got to make some adjustments on defense and be smart with that. Our guys have to step up. If he can’t go, you’re not going to replace him; but we have to shuffle some things around and put ourselves in good position.”
(When did it become evident that there was an issue with CB Xavien Howard?) – “He didn’t really say anything. You know after the game … I found out later that night and then you just kind of see how he feels the next day. Most of the time we wait until the next day to see how the guys feel.”
(CB Xavien Howard won’t need surgery will he?) – “We’ve got to see what’s going on. I think he’ll be back at some point this season. If it’s this week, next week or the week after that, I don’t know.”
(With CB Torry McTyer, do you expect the experiences he’s gone through to sort of help him and speed up his development?) – “Yes. I think it’s good that he’s played. He played in this game last year. All of those guys … Any time we get guys on the field, no matter what part of the season it is – last year or this year – if it’s a live game, you’re going to learn from that real fast.”
(With CB Cornell Armstrong, is his knee injury going to keep him limited?) – “I think we’re going to be all right there.”
(I wanted to ask you about T Laremy Tunsil. Obviously he’s having a good season based on what the numbers are showing and the fact that you guys are allowing him to have one-on-one assignments against some of the best pass rushers. When did you see the growth or the switch come on for him?) – “I think in the spring. It was really noticeable and it helped that every day he was going against Robert (Quinn). When you don’t have pads on – you guys watched in training camp – Robert has incredible get-off and speed and can cause some issues if you don’t get on him quick enough and figure out a way to get him past the quarterback. When you don’t have any pads on, it’s just times that by 10. Right away, you could see that Laremy was at a different level. He was doing a great job in the spring and then when we hit training camp, it just kept getting better. Now, when we hit the regular season, it’s slower for him. It really does look like that he’s setting for quick game almost all of the time. He’s just so good at getting his hands on guys, his movement, if a guy redirects he easily puts his foot in the ground and go the other way. He’s slowed himself down or the game has slowed down for him for some reason.”
(When you have a player or an offensive lineman that can do what T Laremy Tunsil has done, which is basically handle somebody’s best pass rusher one-on-one, what does that do for you as a play caller?) – “It lets me help all of the other guys. When you can just say ‘he’s got him,’ we can double … We can help the left guard. We’ve got the center and the guard doubling a guy and then we can use a tight end and a tackle to double the other guy. You can get double teams across the board if you can leave him on an island.”
(Is it possible to say if CB Xavien Howard’s knee problem now is in any way related to any previous knee issue?) – “No. It was just he got hit funky on that.”
(Beyond WR Brice Butler obviously being a big receiver, what other skills do you like about him that he’s added?) – “I like his route-running (and) his ability to go up and get balls when it’s outside of his range. We’ve seen more than probably what you guys have gotten to see in practice. We haven’t been able to get him too much going in a game. We called a couple of things and it just didn’t happen to go his way. He’s done a really good job of learning this fast and developing a little bit of chemistry with Ryan (Tannehill) and being able to be a guy that you can easily throw it up to him and let him go get it.”
(When you look at this Patriots defense, how much different is it than the defense you saw last year and the year before?) – “It’s always going to be different. There’s always going to be some moving pieces. They’re going to do a good job of mixing things up and making it hard. Even from us playing them when we did until now, it makes it difficult to try to game plan because there’s so much stuff that they’ve done. You’ve just got to be careful about overdoing it, because you’ll start preparing them for a whole bunch of stuff that they might not do against you. You’ve got to be smart in how you game plan this.”
(It seems like no matter what the Dolphins record is, whether things are going well or not so well, when the Patriots come down here, you give them a lot of trouble. Why do you think that is?) – “I mean we’ve got to play the game. Last year doesn’t mean anything. The year before doesn’t mean anything. Every year is a different game. You’ve got to treat it as the next week of the season. It’s still Tom Brady and still a Coach (Bill) Belichick-coached team. We’ll be ready to go.”
(How much was WR Danny Amendola able to do today?) – “He ran some routes and did punt return. I just try to keep him from running around too much but he’s not very compliant.”
(How happy are you with the way you’ve been able to establish home-field advantage?) – “That was something that we’ve been talking about. It really came to light probably last season. We’ve been talking about it all year about how we need to do a great job of winning our home games. We had a slip-up against Detroit. We haven’t fared too well on the road. We need to improve that and figure that one out; but being able to play at home, the weather is always good for us because we’re down here all of the time. I think sometimes it hits some of these teams pretty hard, especially now. Last Sunday, you looked at those guys at the end of the game and everybody was exhausted. We just need to keep that going and any time we play a home game, we need to figure out a way to win a game.”
(Do you plan for that – the heat or humidity being a factor on an opposing team?) – “I want to say yes, but you just never know how the flow of the game is going to go. If it’s lopsided – one side or the other – it can hurt us. If our defense is out there 80 plays, they’re going to get tired. That’s just what’s going to happen.”
(How successful do you think you’ve been this season in your war on penalties?) – “I think we’ve been … There’s been some good games and there’s been some games that have been just brutal to witness. We’re kind of like right in the middle of the pack as far as accepted penalties. I’m going to lean on that since the actual penalties haven’t been great. We’ve had probably too many called. The biggest thing for me is if we have penalties that are within the action of the game, it is what it is. The pre-snap, post-snap stuff, that’s where, to me, we have to keep those clean. That gives us our best shot.”
(How much is it affecting what you’re trying to do on offense at this point?) – “Well it hurts you when you’re second-and-20 and all of those long distances because you’re putting yourself in a really bad spot. It’s hard to get back from those.”
(Would you say the Patriots defense is trying to be more aggressive of late or are they playing about the same as they were earlier this season?) – “It depends who they play. I think they’ve played … A couple of the quarterbacks they’ve played the last few games, guys like Aaron Rodgers, they brought some pressure and tried to get them to get the ball out and tried to do a good job of staying in tight coverage and going up to tackle. I think it’s just who they play and kind of what they have up for that week. Every game is so different. They do a great job of just really game-planning for that game and doing what they have to do to win it.”
(Are they trying to pressure better quarterbacks more?) – “Sometimes they do. Sometimes they go all out on the rookies. Sometimes they don’t and let them throw picks or see if they can get them to hold onto the ball a little longer to where he makes a bad decision. It’s varied on the quarterbacks that are the elite guys. Sometimes you see them bring everybody and then sometimes they don’t. It changes. Every quarterback, they treat it different.”
(TE Nick O’Leary has gone from being a free agent to practice squad and now he has an extension. What has he done to earn that extension in your eyes?) – “I think he just comes to work every day and grinds. You guys know, he doesn’t say anything. (laughter) He just tries to do right. Whatever he’s got, he sells out every Sunday and really every day in practice. We like guys like that, that just give everything they have.”
