Adam Gase – August 25, 2016 (Postgame)
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August 25, 2016
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Adam Gase (transcribed by Dan Bradley)
(Opening Statement) – “I’m going to give you the injuries here real quick, so we can get clear. (Ndamukong) Suh, he had an ankle (injury). He’s okay. (Jelani) Jenkins, he had an ankle (injury). He’s okay. (Isaiah) Pead had a hamstring (injury). We’ll look at it tomorrow and see where he’s at. (Terrence) Fede had a knee (injury). We’ll look at it tomorrow. It’s nothing major though. We just have to, obviously, take a closer look at that.”
(Adam, what did you think of Arian Foster’s performance today?) – “He did what we thought he was going to do. I think us going to him in a couple big situations (like) that fourth-and-3 (and) him getting the ball there – and I’m not sure he was more than a yard deep and making sure that he got the first down – (the) situational awareness, understanding what was going on, that was good to see. (We are) trying to get him into a rhythm to see if we can get him used to the flow of the game. Practice is one thing. I think this is a little different for him.”
(Adam, Ryan Tannehill had a decent performance and a possible touchdown pass drop, perhaps a potential interception was dropped, a 22-yard run. What did you think of Ryan overall?) – “He’s doing what I’ve seen all training camp, all spring. Nothing is a surprise. It’s unfortunate we had a tipped ball pick, but that’s what happens when the defensive line gets tired and they just have to throw their hands up and hope they can do something. I thought he did a good job. His reads were good. He was very quick as far as getting the calls out and getting his guys lined up. He played at a great tempo.”
(The offensive line allowed no sacks through three quarters. What did you see from the line tonight?) – “I saw a group trying to get better. We moved a couple guys in and out, but that first group talked about keep giving guys an opportunity and see if anything will sort itself out before we get to that first game of the season. We’ll keep evaluating and see what it ends up being. We still have one more game. And then once we get to Seattle, we’ll probably be with what we go with for a while and see how that comes together.”
(Adam, do you think Jordan Cameron’s drops are more physical or mental at this point?) – “That one today in the end zone was tough. That was a high hitter. That guy had really good leverage. That was probably more on me than Jordan as far as play call. He did what he was supposed to do: try to get in front of guys. He had a weird angle in the end zone. It happens; it’s the NFL. We had a couple other guys have some drops. When that ball comes in there, and it’s got some juice on it, sometimes it happens. We’ll move on to the next play. We’ll line it up and throw it again.”
(Adam, how do you coach a player that’s throwing like that?) – “You just keep working on it. I’m not going to get down on him. He has done a lot of great things. He has progressed a lot since the spring. He knows what to do offensively as far as the scheme goes. He’ll be fine.”
(Adam, when you say the (Jordan Cameron) drop was on you, what did you mean?) – “I would have called a different route. The guy lined up hard inside and (Ryan Tannehill) had no other option. We need to get to the point where those two guys (Tannehill and Cameron) can see that and communicate that they need to go to a different route.”
(Do you feel that Jordan Cameron is working through his frustrations?) – “He’s doing a lot of things right. When you’re in a position where the ball is being thrown to you, everybody looks at one thing: whether you catch the ball or you drop the ball. Right now, he’s doing a lot right. We just need to clean up some of the things in the passing game. There were a couple other opportunities we may have had down the field with him. Ryan (Tannehill) was smart with it and felt the coverage dropping back and got (the ball) to the running back. There was a couple other times that he broke free, and if they were any tighter on the underneath coverage, it was probably over top and maybe we have a chance with an explosive (play) with him.”
(Why does it seem Cameron Wake plays mostly on passing plays?) – “That was kind of the plan. I know we didn’t give you guys everything this week as far as what we were going to do, but we wanted him to play on third down. We wanted him to get some rushes in and get back in the feel of the game. That was the plan going into this game. Every day, we’re going to do more and more and get him to the point where he feels like it’s 100 percent, we’re back and we’re ready to go a certain amount of snaps that we’ll talk about throughout the season. The goal is to make sure he plays 16-plus games, and tonight was a good first step for us.”
(At left cornerback, what did you think of Tony Lippett and Bobby McCain?) – “It’s hard to tell from where I’m standing sometimes. We’re doing a lot of stuff on offense, and I’m trying to watch the defense at the same time, so I actually haven’t been able to evaluate those guys on the field. Good thing is that we’ll be able to watch film after this game and go through it, try to watch some of it tonight. We’ll get in a little earlier (tonight, and) we’ll have a little more time tomorrow and be able to sit down as a staff and reevaluate where we are at.”
(Is Xavien Howard going to play in the next game?) – “We would love to try to get him back this week as far as getting him in the game. I think if he can play in this game, then we play him. He needs to play in another NFL game before we get to Seattle.”
(Arian Foster only had about 10 yards rushing in the first half. Do you think he did better in the second half?) – “I think it’s an improvement from where we were at last week. When we go back and watch the film, we’ll kind of see what they were doing and see what we did well. We sometimes – schematically – we match up fairly well as far as what our scheme does compared to what their scheme does. We just have to go back and make sure, ‘How many guys were right? Was everyone doing their job, and consistently, can we do that through four quarters going into the season?’ Once we get back, and we’re able to watch the film, we’ll have a better idea of what happened this game.”
(How would you describe the execution when there was an increase in tempo?) – “I thought it was good. I really had no issues. I don’t remember saying anything like, ‘So-and-so is not right,’ or, ‘What is he doing as far as where his eyes are going?’ I didn’t really see that. I felt like the tempo was really good. I felt like that on the two-minute drive, even (when) we got gassed a little at the end. I wish I would have had a different call there for that when we have 9 seconds left. It’s tough because you don’t want to show everything. You don’t want to put everything out there in the preseason, but then you start getting real competitive, and you want to figure out a way to either score a touchdown or put yourself in a better position.”
(Did you have a good feeling about how Arian Foster would fit into your plans when you signed him?) – “Yes, we had a feeling when we signed him. I had a good idea about how I wanted to use him. We’re using him the right way in practice and here we were able to get him going versus some action tackling. I just wanted him to get hit a few more times to make sure he feels like he’s back, because he won’t play next week. He’s not. His next time he’ll have any kind of contact is going to be Seattle.”
(Adam, with Reshad Jones’s interception, did he make a great play? Did he take advantage of a mistake? What did you see?) – “To tell you exactly what was going on route-wise, I’m not sure. Anytime you get a (Defensive Back) – especially a safety that makes a play on the ball and finishes it –it’s a great play just for the fact he anticipated what was coming, stepped in front of the receiver and picked it off. I wish we would have been able to turn it around. I always feel like when you get a turnover, you have to put points on the board, and we didn’t take advantage of it on offense.”
(Does Anthony Steen have good communication with Ryan Tannehill?) – “Absolutely. They did a great job together. What happened on the one fumbled snap, I’ll have to take a look at it (to see) whether or not Ryan left a little early or something was short. Sometimes it takes the video to realize what was going on in that area. We were stressing them a little bit, too. We did some things to where we were running a lot of outside zones so Ryan had to do a good job of making sure the quarterback’s interchange was good. Steen did a good job. He was good with the calls, so that was a positive for us.”
(Coach, you guys are now three preseason games in, you just won the most important preseason game. How do you feel overall where you’re at and where your team is at?) – “I feel like we have six more practices left before Seattle. We got a lot of work to do before we go up there. We got three (practices) this week, and we got another preseason game to try figure out what’s the rest of our roster going to look like. I think we have at least a decent idea of who some of our four is going to be, but I think there’s a lot of battles going on that might not be publically what everyone is really looking at. But we have to figure a few things out, and then once we get through this week, it’s going to be quick.”
(Would you say that it’s fair that pass protection is ahead of run blocking and is that typical in your experience?) – “I think when you’ve got three receivers and the tight ends that we have and the quarterback that we have, it’s a talented group, and Ryan is doing a good job in getting the ball out, so it feels that way. I feel like the run game is coming. We’re developing. We’re starting to pop some runs here and there. I probably could have run a little more in the first half to be a little more balanced, but we were trying to make sure we were cleaned up on some of the pass protection. We want to make sure we’re good with the routes. We wanted to make sure we established that tempo. We only have so many plays to get in that first half, so when we play a four quarter game, that run game is going to get better as we go throughout the game.”
