Adam Gase – December 10, 2018
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Monday, December 10, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(You’ve obviously always had great faith in QB Ryan Tannehill. Has how he’s done since returning increased that faith even more?) – “I’ve never changed. He’s played the way we needed him to play these last few games. He’s protecting the football, done a good job finding open guys and a good job of running the offense.”
(Anyone among your NFL friends you heard from with any amusing texts – Peyton Manning or Mike Martz or anybody last night?) – “I haven’t really gone through them all. I pretty much shut my phone down there after a while. I’m sure a couple guys that I text with, but I have a lot of people to get back to.”
(What made that play work?) – “Protection was good because usually you have something happen where you have to move up in the protection. I thought those guys did a good job. Ryan (Tannehill) threw it at the right time. Kenny (Stills) did a good job of not throwing it. He didn’t do what happens a lot of times where you catch it and you toss it and it doesn’t matter if there’s a guy there. Him kind of noticing that guy there and then waited and pitched it to DeVante (Parker). Then, after watching that, DeVante was probably right with what he did to get it to Kenyan (Drake). At the time, I thought he could’ve kept running and wait to pitch it to him because that’s really what you’re trying to do is get him to go as long as possible until he has to pitch it. But that’s probably not a bad idea to give it to the guy that has probably better vision and he’s kind of been in that situation as a kickoff returner and a running back.”
(Do you think you have the makings of a pretty good rugby team?) – “We might. It was a good effort. It was good to see Ted (Larsen) down the field. A lot of linemen were down the field. Guys didn’t give up on the play.”
(Why did you shut your phone down?) – “I just turned off the vibrate thing, put in on silent. I was just doing some other things, working on Minnesota.”
(When you practice that play, does RB Kenyan Drake usually get the ball last or can it be anybody?) – “No, he usually gets it last. DeVante (Parker) usually runs about 10-15 yards then he pitches it to Drake and Drake does some ridiculous touchdown dance going in.”
(Why didn’t we see that yesterday?) – “I’m sure when it was real, he was just like ‘I better get in the end zone.’ (laughter)”
(We saw you guys score on the first drive for the third game in a row. You guys responded every time they scored. You overcame penalties when you had long drives. You scored twice in the red zone. If you could encapsulate it, what worked for you guys yesterday?) – “The same stuff we always do, we just executed better. I just thought guys did a good job of making plays when we needed to. We stayed out of third down for the most part, and you can see why we need to. I think our only conversion was a run. We struggled on third down, so if we can stay first and second down, it’s probably ideal for us.”
(Was it magnitude of the game, the opponent, knowing that your season is on the line with every single play?) – “Guys had a good week of practice. I guess they just felt good about the game plan. It’s a different feeling when you know you’re fighting for your football lives. You never know what’s going to happen. You don’t know if you lose one game, it’s over. The guys were just wired in, ready to go.”
(New England had just six second-half points. What did you like from your defense there in the second half?) – “The effort was through the roof. They tried to play as well as they could as a group. When one of your best players isn’t out there, you need every guy to just really do a good job of doing their job and everybody just really stepped up in their spots to help the other guys out. I think they did a great job of that, especially in the second half.”
(How is QB Ryan Tannehill’s ankle?) – “He’s sore. He’s walking around, so that’s good.”
(Is there a story behind RB Brandon Bolden now getting carries later in the season?) – “It was just … We’ve lost all of those other guys, whether it’s Jakeem (Grant) or Albert (Wilson). Brandon has a very wide skill set. He can do things out wide, in the backfield. His pass protection, he’s a really good pass protector. He can do all three phases of the game. We started doing it … It’s probably my fault that we haven’t done it sooner. We started doing it last week against Buffalo. That was just kind of the starting point for us. Really, we just got to the rest of his plays and now we can start over and try to build some more off of it.”
(What’s the plan with CB Xavien Howard for this week?) – “We’ll just see how he feels. It is what it is. We can’t rush him and put him out there and have something else happen. We just have to kind of wait and see and see how he feels and take it step by step.”
(Did you guys have two nickel packages? One with CB/S Walt Aikens and one with CB Torry McTyer?) – “We were just kind of rotating those guys in. I think Walt played some base on first and second down. We were just trying to play the guys we had. I know Walt was ready to go. He wanted to contribute as much as possible. We were just trying to rotate those guys in. Walt is a bigger body so that kind of helps us with their receivers – Josh (Gordon) and ‘84’ (Cordarrelle Patterson) in there. Those are some big dudes.”
(Although Bills QB Josh Allen ran for a lot of yards, against just the running back in classic plays out of the back field, your defense has had pretty good results the last couple of weeks. Has anything changed that you’ve noticed?) – “No. Just playing team defense. Guys are playing hard. They’re trying to really wire in on their gap responsibility. I think that’s made a big difference for us.”
(Do you feel like the team is in a good position for what’s to come the next three weeks? Are you feeling optimistic?) – “Yeah. I mean, I better. (laughter) Are you kidding me? (laughter) We just won a game that…”
(I mean the way you are playing.) – “Yeah. I like where we’re at. We’re alive. We’re one week at a time but if you’re not excited right now then you might as well just go find something else to do.”
(How much wiggle room do you feel like you have?) – “Probably none.”
(Can you give an answer as to the discrepancy between how you play at home and on the road?) – “We’ve played tough teams on the road. You look at Cincinnati at the time, they were playing well. New England we kind of caught where they had to get going. Obviously we helped them out there. Indianapolis is tough. Green Bay, Houston. Those teams are all pretty good.”
(So it’s not how you’ve played? You think it’s more of who you’ve played?) – “I think it’s a little bit of probably everything but it’s not like we’re just going out there and just getting smoked and we’re better than that team. You’re playing at tough venues and tough quarterbacks. You have to play really well. You have to play close to perfect. It’s tough enough to win on the road let alone make a bunch of mistakes, which we’ve done. We’ve made a lot of mistakes, turned the ball over, had certain games where we’re out of whack and giving up big rushing plays. Everybody has taken their turn. We have to tighten everything up and go in and play like we have down here.”
(Has Hard Rock Stadium become one of the toughest places to win in the league?) – “It’s hard. I mean, there’s probably about seven of us over the last few years with about the same record. It’s good that we’re up there.”
(Even though yesterday was incredibly rare, there have been examples throughout football’s history with the Music City Miracle, Hail Flutie. What is it about Boise that made you latch on to that one?) – “I think it just gives you a chance to get the ball into the hands of a dynamic guy in space and has the opportunity to try to hit one. You throw a Hail Mary, you’ve got a guy trying to tip it and then hopefully it falls into somebody’s hands. It’s a long throw you’re trying to get off before you get sacked and a lot of bad things can happen. And you’re, what, 70 yards away from the end zone? He’s really got to put a lot into that one. I don’t know if he could have got it there. At least it gives you a chance. It gives you a chance almost like a kickoff return.”
(Since the bye, there have been some tangible moments from DE Robert Quinn that have really helped. Obviously the sack before the end of the first half. How’s he been playing in your mind, and how big was that sack?) – “That was big. It avoided letting up points there after that whole … I mean, that was about as bad a four plays as you could have. He’s done a good job of trying to do what we need him to do to help us with the run game, but also allow him to pass rush at the same time. I feel like he’s done a really good job of helping us out in the run game and tightening things down. And then he’s done a good job when he gets one-on-ones. He’s creating pressure.”
(I don’t think we’ve ever seen a game like that out of LS John Denney.) – “I think we’re going to take a look at just a couple of things to do in protection, about what we could do. I think they had a really good rush. They did a really good job kind of how they rushed us on those two plays and I thought (Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren) Rizzi did a good job of flipping kind of some of our protections. We were going to the rugby-style deal and then we were able to go back against their stay, their defensive-stay stuff. Obviously we’ve got to clean some things up on it with that group. That’s a rare … For us, that’s very rare. They did a good job of taking advantage of something they saw and we’ll clean it up and get ready for the next one.”
(Why was WR Kenny Stills so successful yesterday?) – “Right place, right time. We didn’t call anything different, just thought the protection was good. The coverage dictated that the ball went there. When I saw the numbers after the game, I was shocked. It’s rare to see, like, eight (receptions for him) and then everybody else had one. That’s not really how it’s designed. But you don’t always control what they call and a couple of plays just happened to work out that way.”
(What did you think when WR Kenny Stills slid? He said after the game that he wasn’t aware of the down-and-distance situation.) – “I can’t say what I was thinking. (laughter) I was a little frustrated because I just knew … I was like, ‘Oh God, all of my plays are with Ryan (Tannehill) running and he can’t run. That’s not good.’”
(Did Offensive Coordinator Dowell Loggains serve a different role for you guys than he has in previous games? Was he calling more plays or having more input?) – “No. The same as always.”
(How many times did you watch the final play last night?) – “I saw it one time in the locker room and then one time after that.”
(The locker room scene, anything you can tell us about it? Dumping water on each other?) – “It was great. That was great. I’m happy for those guys. They worked really hard, especially the last two weeks, to try to help us stay alive in this thing. It’s good to be on that side of it instead of the other side. We stay alive and we’ll see what happens this week.”
(How many times do you get a postgame locker room scene in the regular season like you guys had?) – “Probably not like that, but there’s been a couple of times where it’s been similar to that where guys are excited. I thought throughout the whole game yesterday, the sideline was awesome. I felt like each side of the ball picking each other up and just the energy at halftime was probably something I’ve never seen before as far as just the energy from the time we walked in to the time we left. It just never changed. Both sides talking to each other, encouraging each other. I mean, these guys were dialed in. They were doing everything they could to put us in position to win.”
(The two veterans you added that obviously helped a great deal, with RB Brandon Bolden and WR Brice Butler, do you remember during the process when Executive Vice President of Football Operations Mike Tannenbaum, General Manager Chris Grier and you were talking, did you voice an opinion on those two specifically early in the process?) – “I think Brandon was probably an unexpected opportunity. Mike did a good job of working with his agent to get it done. I know I was talking to Brandon quite a bit during that time just to explain to him kind of what our situation was and what we were looking for and how I thought he could impact our team. And obviously him and Danny (Amendola) are very close. Danny was a big help with that as far as talking to me about how much he could help us, what he could do for the locker room and on the field. He even said at the time, ‘He’s a really good running back, just he hasn’t played that spot in a while.’ As far as Brice, I think he came in and worked out, did a good job. Once we got him on the practice field, then we kind of started figuring out what’s best for him, what he could do, how he could help us.”
(You talk about the 24-hour rule, but after yesterday, I can’t help but wonder, are you sort of hoping that yesterday kind of carries over and you get that momentum going for next week?) – “I don’t think that’s going to be hard. When you get to this point of the season and guys know every game is do-or-die basically, a win like this can help you. We’re not going to sit there and talk about it all day long. They’re going to get ready for the next one. They know that we’re going to play a team that’s really good. It’s going to be a challenge offensively, it’s going to be a challenge defensively, and special teams. I mean, all three phases, we’re going to have play really well.”
(Is this a game you watch live tonight?) – “I’m sure I’ll have it on in the background. But there’s a lot of stuff to do.”
(Do you guys show the team the standings, the playoff standings and where you guys are each week?) – “It just depends what it is. When I feel like it’s necessary to kind of maybe show where we are just to remind everybody. The biggest point we made maybe a few weeks ago – because some people are so negative and, ‘Your season’s over,’ and this and that (laughter) – sometimes it’s nice to be able to point certain things out and explain how you play every game and you focus on what you have to do that week because you never know what’s going to happen. I’ve showed guys the standings in the past where teams were eighth and then all of a sudden they’re three with five games left. There’s just examples that you can use to say, ‘Focus on what we’re doing right now. Play it out. Because you never know how it’s going to end up.’”
(I know every season is different, but to me there’s some parallels to last year. You won two in a row to get back in it, now if you win out you can go in and make some noise. Can you learn from what happened last year?) – “I’m sure as coaches, we always will think about, ‘All right, last year, maybe here’s what we did wrong, maybe this is what we’ve got to change going forward.’ As far as our players go, I don’t know how many guys are actually on our roster that were here last year at this point. Plus most guys don’t worry about what happened last year. They don’t really remember. They’re not worried about it. They’re so focused on here and now that last year doesn’t mean anything to them.”
(I’ll put it this way: You said last year you learned a lot about your team in the last few weeks. Are you going to learn a lot about your team these three weeks?) – “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I have a good feel what this team is about. Our guys … this is a good group of guys. They work hard. They give you everything they have.”
