Adam Gase – December 17, 2018
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Monday, December 17, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Have you gotten any indication yet if we’ll see RB Frank Gore again this year?) – “I’m not … I don’t have information as far as the extent of the injury right now. I’ll know something here in the next couple of hours.”
(With RB Kenyan Drake, just to clarify, CBS said during the broadcast yesterday that you were being cautious with him because of an ankle injury. Shoulder has also been reported. Was that the reason for one carry? He was obviously very involved in the passing game. Or was there another reason for having one carry?) – “I don’t remember saying that to them. I don’t know if we were talking about different people but I don’t recall saying that to them. It was just kind of how it went with the carries and touches where (Kalen) Ballage was playing fairly well and we had some protection issues early where they both took their turns. It just kind of worked out the way it did. There were a couple of times where we tried to dial some stuff up for Kenyan but we either allowed a sack or a pressure or something broke down to where we couldn’t get the ball to him.”
(How do you see the situation in terms of workload for RB Kalen Ballage and RB Brandon Bolden going forward?) – “I don’t know. We’ll worry about it when we hit Wednesday. I’ll have a better idea. I have to find out what’s going on with Frank (Gore) and see where we’re at after that.”
(RB Kenyan Drake’s injury wasn’t a factor as to why he wasn’t the primary rusher?) – “I didn’t think it was. I think (Kalen) Ballage did all right.”
(What’s your message to the team at this point?) – “We have to worry about getting ready for this week. That’s our focus and always is and always will be. We take it one week at a time. The different part right now is the next two weeks, we can handle our business but that doesn’t mean anything. You have other teams that can affect our season, good or bad. But none of it matters if we don’t handle the next two games and figure out a way to win.”
(How difficult is it to re-group in this situation with the standings?) – “This is what it is. This is what we get paid to do. This is what all of these guys signed up for: 16 games. It gets tough sometimes when you’re coming off a loss like this. It’s not easy. You go into a game feeling you’re ready, prepared and everyone is doing a good job of playing team football and then we just played poorly.”
(Is any part of you surprised that RB Kalen Ballage had that kind of big-play ability?) – “No. We watch it every day in practice. That long run he had, that’s how he runs every day. That’s how he finishes every day. There’s a reason why he’s able to do that and was confident to just gas it and run by everybody because every day in practice, we watch the same thing. When he gets a carry with the offense, he finishes in the end zone. It’s a good trait to have.”
(Do you want to clutter your mind at all this week just looking at what you need to do to make the playoffs?) – “No. We need to focus on winning this game.”
(As you look back yesterday, is nine sacks solely on pass protection?) – “No.”
(Are there any plays that you look back where QB Ryan Tannehill could have…) – “It was everybody. We all took a part in it, including myself. A couple of the protections, we probably should’ve done something different. The quarterback, running backs, tight ends, o-line, receivers getting open faster, it was the whole group.”
(With those routes and with the pressures that were coming, were the hot routes working?) – “We had one time where we should have had a hot and we missed it. But all of the other ones, we had enough guys to block who they had and we didn’t get it done.”
(With being down three scores as early as you were, how hard was it to resist the temptation of becoming a one-dimensional offense?) – “Not hard with their pass rush. We have so much game left. I wasn’t worried about having to hurry up and start throwing it because we’ve run the ball fairly efficiently over the last few weeks. With Kalen (Ballage) and (Kenyan) Drake, you never know when that one play is coming. We just tried to put a drive together. We got down in the red zone and we had a couple of opportunities there to possibly stick it in the end zone. It would have been nice to get seven there and then go into the half and try to get another seven and see how much we could swing that game. We didn’t get that done. We got three. It was a tight game there for a minute. We had three bad plays, we punt it, they have a great return and then we hold them to a field goal but that seemed to suck the air out of us.”
(I wanted to ask you about the defensive line. You guys have so many resources in it and opponents have nearly been averaging 150 rushing yards per game. At some point, is it scheme? Is it personnel? Is it play-calling? What is at the route of the issue?) – “Our money is on the edges. They’re there to pass rush. Cam (Wake) does a great job of setting the edge on his side. We haven’t been consistent setting the edge on the other side, whoever it has been over there. But it takes a full group to stop the run. The d-line can’t do it by themselves. The linebackers have to fit where they’re supposed to fit. The safeties have to fit where they’re supposed to fit. If we do let them get the edge, we have to tackle at corner. Nobody did anything well yesterday. Minkah (Fitzpatrick) probably had close to the best game out of our group but he still had his mistakes. That was a great play on the pick-six but we didn’t play well enough as a group. We always want to say the d-line, the d-line, but it takes 11 guys to play well in the run game. Just like on offense, it takes 11 guys to run the ball well. It takes the quarterback faking on an outside zone to pull out the defensive end to get the cut back. It takes the whole group. One group doesn’t do anything. It takes all 11.”
(But if the d-line is giving pressure to the linebackers, if they’re not protecting…) – “If they’re giving up their gap, then yeah, that’s an issue there. But that’s not always the case. It’s we don’t fit something right or we miss a tackle or when we pressure, we have two guys kind of popping their head in the same gap. That kills you. We make that mistake too much. We have to go back to work and keep working on it. The New England game is a great example of we did it right. We played physical. Everybody stayed in their gap. We played disciplined and we did a better job of stopping the run.”
(You mentioned S Minkah Fitzpatrick’s pick-six. RB Kalen Ballage had a long touchdown run. The way this rookie has evolved as the season has gone on, your thoughts on that?) – “It’s a mature group. They’ve done a good job of being guys that have come in and made plays. You hate to waste plays like that and not be in a tight game towards the end. It’s almost … you always try to debate are you better off getting blown out or losing in a heartbreaker. No matter which way you do it, it just hurts the same. You just wish those plays would have mattered in the grand scheme of things to where it’s a tight game and you give ourselves a chance in the fourth quarter. We just didn’t do that.”
(Your early outlook, I guess, on CB Xavien Howard?) – “We’ll see how it goes this week. Like I said, no matter where we’re at when it comes to postseason play – which right now I know we’re on the outside looking in – we’re going to do what’s best for him and make sure that he’s in a good position to where he feels good about his lateral movement, his straight-line speed and all of those things to where he can play at the level that he needs to play at. I’m not going to throw him out there just to say he needs to play this week.”
(So you’re saying that RB Kalen Ballage, from what he’s shown you so far in practice and in games, shows that he’s ready to be a lead back?) – “I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying for that game, that was our best option right there.”
(How is QB Ryan Tannehill physically?) – “I’m sure he’s sore. He’s not going to tell me anything. I’m just going off of what I see. I’m sure his ankle is sore. I’m sure his body hurts. But he never lets you know.”
