Adam Gase – December 13, 2018
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Thursday, December 13, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(With RB Kenyan Drake, obviously you’ve found a way to get him the ball in different ways to become a huge factor in the passing game. Was that ever anything that you sort of had to sell to him early in the year where maybe he might have been a little down about his touches not being as high? Was that sort of a sales job where you said ‘Look, you’re going to get the ball but it is going to be as a receiver?’ Or has he always embraced that, do you think?) – “He’s never said anything. He’s always known that was one of the reasons we drafted him was we liked the fact that he could do all three aspects of a running back. He could run the ball, catch the ball and pass protect. He knew it could come in different ways. It could be 10 targets or it could be 20 carries. You just never know.”
(Do you have a magical formula for touches for running backs?) – “No. I wish I did. It’s just kind of the flow of the game. It’s just weird. Things happen sometimes like one game Frank (Gore) goes out and then all of a sudden Kenyan (Drake) gets like 12 touches in a quarter.”
(Running backs, tight ends and wide receivers, they all want the ball because that’s what they do and that’s what they want. They think if they’re not getting the ball, they’re not contributing. How do you look at whether it’s cool for guys to say ‘I want the ball because I can do more’ or … It’s hard for me to know. Is that good? Is that bad? How do you balance that?) – “I mean no doubt, every guy wants as many touches as he can. Receivers probably have one of the more frustrating jobs there are because you run all day and you get like three catches or five catches. A good game is eight catches for 100-some yards and there are 70 plays in a game or 60. That’s a low percentage, but it’s what it is. You have a bunch of different guys and a team takes one guy away and then somebody else has to kind of step up and make some plays. It’s a little bit of a mental test of just being able to focus on that play and when the ball comes to you, you just make sure that you make the play we need.”
(I’m wondering about an emotional hangover after big victories. I think you said you liked your team’s demeanor yesterday but I think you guys had RB Jay Ajayi against Cleveland in 2016 – the overtime run – and you had a playoff win in Denver with QB Tim Tebow I guess, and then yesterday. Are there varying degrees of that emotional hangover and how do you combat it?) – “Every team is different. A lot of times you know … Where we’re at right now, you’re in the last month of the season and I don’t think you really have time to think like that. When it happens in a playoff game, that’s all you’re getting for the next three days, five days or whatever it is. I think our guys have done a good job of moving on. It was a great way for the game to end for us but we have to focus on the next one because if we don’t, it could be over. I don’t think our guys are ready for that. They want to keep fighting. They want to keep seeing if we can put ourselves in position to where when the last week is done, we can keep going.”
(Did you address that when the team gathered again? Sort of to forget about what happened Sunday?) – “We covered a lot of stuff. That may or may not have been part of it.”
(Can you talk about the challenges of facing a team that basically has two No. 1 receivers?) – “It’s hard. Both of those guys (Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs) … I remember when Diggs was a rookie, he was tough then. Everybody said he came out of nowhere but I think a lot of people knew who he was and then he made plays right out of the gate. The way that Thielen is playing right now, he’s a tough guy to cover. We’ve had so many crossover games. I’ve seen about every way that he’s been doubled this year and some people have gotten creative. It didn’t matter. They still find a way to get him the ball and he found a way to get open. He does a really good job with his routes. He makes it really tough for … Whoever is covering him or the two guys that are trying to cover him, he makes it really tough.”
(How does a guy with WR Adam Thielen’s skill set end up at a small school, undrafted with no invite to the Combine? Schools won’t even let him do a 40-yard dash. How in the world does that happen?) – “I don’t know. I can’t explain anything up until the last couple of years. He was a restricted free agent and you kind of comb through and start watching guys. We were watching him and I’m like ‘Wow. Where did this guy come from?’ He just keeps getting better. He’s seeing some different stuff that he’s probably never gone against before but he’s finding ways to … He’s figuring out within the game how to get open.”
(I wanted to ask you about T Ja’Wuan James and how many tackles would you say can pull and turn the corner like he has been doing this year?) – “I think a lot of them probably do it really well on air but not a lot of guys probably can do what he does because he can accelerate really fast. When he gets going, that’s a big man coming around the corner at a high rate of speed. That’s why you see him get cut by the DBs, which I know that doesn’t feel great for him. When he turns that corner, if he gets somebody squared up, we’re going to have a hole. A lot of times when he comes around the corner, people are getting out of the way, so we’re getting a hole there anyways. That’s been big for us. It’s really helped. Last week it was really beneficial for us. We had a couple of good 10-plus yards on some carries there. We try to mix it up with him and keep giving him some different ways on certain plays to … If it’s gap scheme, we’re pulling him every once in a while and it helps him with all of the other runs because people are aware that when he pulls, he does a good job with it.”
(How much growth have you seen from T Ja’Wuan James over the course of while you guys have been together?) – “I think this year it’s been as consistent as I remember. Maybe last year is a little hazier because he missed some time at the end of the year; but he’s had some tough matchups this year. Out of the three years (I’ve been here), this is probably the first time where it feels like every week he’s getting a tough matchup. He’s getting one of the guys that people are talking about, like ‘Wow. This guy is really having a good year.’ He’s got another one this week (with Vikings DE Danielle Hunter and DE Everson Griffen) and this will probably be a top two (matchup for him). That’s what it is. The d-ends in this league are getting better and better and the guys that can block them and use their help the right way and can set themselves up, those are the guys that are going to have success. I think he’s doing a good job of doing the things that we’re asking him to do. When he’s on an island, he’s figuring out a way to get those guys covered up and pushing past the quarterback and making sure that guy can’t jump inside and get a free hit.”
(On that same note, you guys have a play where T Ja’Wuan James and G/T Jesse Davis both pull. I think RB Frank Gore usually gets the ball. I know RB Kenyan Drake has gotten it. At a glance, that seems to be a very successful play for you guys. Has that been one of your most successful running plays this year?) – “When we’ve called it, it’s been pretty good. We tried to run it at the end of the half and that one didn’t work as well, so that started a freefall there. It all depends on the front and kind of how the points of entry are. It starts with the first guy. When Jesse comes through, if he’s clean on his then Ja’Wuan can get through and now all of a sudden, you have something going. It’s been good probably the majority of the time but there are times where we’ve run it where it’s been a negative play or zero yards.”
(Is that usually a RB Frank Gore play?) – “I don’t even know who is in the game half of the time when I’m calling those.”
(When you are looking at opponents, how often do you sort of make mental notes on guys that pop out at you from other teams so that down the road, if the situation is right, you could…) – “Most of those guys don’t usually get out of whatever team they’re on because they get re-signed when it is free agency and things like that. It probably happens a little bit when you see a guy and you’re like, ‘Man, that guy is a really good player.’ So if that ever comes up, you remember stuff like that, especially when you play them. You can remember all of the things that guy disrupted.”
(Is it an advantage when you find guys off of division rivals because you are hurting them?) – “Yeah. If you get around them and those guys are really contributing for you, then that’s a good thing for us.”
(At this point, would you be surprised if CB Xavien Howard played?) – “I won’t be surprised by anything around here, for sure. I’ve seen about … I think we’ve almost covered everything.”
(How is CB Xavien Howard doing?) – “He seems good. He’s just got to get to the point where he’s testing it out. It’s really the quick-twitch, lateral stuff, to see where he’s at on that. We’re just trying to make sure we do right by him. It’s really going to be … He’s going to have to tell me, ‘I’m good. Let’s go.’ I just want to make sure that when he comes back, he feels right.”
(I wanted to ask you about your favorite topic: third-down offense. Minnesota is No. 1 in the league on third-down defense.) – “Awesome. (laughter)”
(How much of a challenge is that? I know it’s about getting into favorable downs and distances heading into third downs, but have you figured out what has been the crisis?) – “Yeah, I mean I go through it every week. I keep watching the same stuff over and over again, I feel like. If you add that game and go back through it and watch what you’ve done and what other teams do against you, some of it is we don’t execute. Sometimes it’s a bad call. I’ve had a couple of those where I just dialed up the wrong thing at the wrong time. Like that third-and-1 last week. If I could have one back, that would be it. We have to keep working it. We have to keep trying to figure out what’s our strength and we have to get the ball to the right guys. We’ve got to get it to the guys that can get us a first down, whether it be running the ball, catching it, whatever it is. Right now I think we’re open for business when it comes to trying some different stuff when we need to and when the right situation calls for it. We need to just get the ball into the guys’ (hands) that can make plays.”
(Have you changed the routine of how you work on third downs?) – “We have tried everything. It’s just the way it is right now. We just have to keep working on it. We have to try to … It really comes down to we have to get the ball in the right guys’ hands.”
(What percentage of your time do you think you spend scheming plays versus being the CEO of the team?) – “I don’t even know. I can’t … That’s a hard one to answer because everything moves fast during the day to where you could be doing one thing like watching film and then all of a sudden, something comes up so you’ve got to go deal with that and come back. That’s how it is all day. There’s no shortage of … I’m not looking for stuff to do. There’s something on my plate all of the time.”
