Chan Gailey – October 20, 2020
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Tuesday, October 20, 2020
Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey
(This being a bye week, it’s obviously about improvement, and I’m wondering what you would say is the next step in the development of QB Tua Tagovailoa? What does he need to improve on, and knowing you, I think you might be tempted to say everything; but could you please be specific?) – “It’s hard to be specific. He’s been thrown into a very difficult situation in that he didn’t have any preseason, he didn’t have really an offseason, so I’m going to say everything. But really, just an overall understanding of what we’re trying to get done. I think he has a basic understanding of it, but you don’t get the specifics if you don’t get out there. The specifics of things, and feeling the speed of the game and all of that kind of stuff is hard. Hopefully as time goes on, we can continue to have him develop and see how quickly he can get ready to play, whenever that might be.”
(You’ve talked a lot about the good problem to have: too many weapons, too many mouths to feed on the offensive side of the football. I just wanted to get your take six weeks in and how you feel you’ve done trying to get the ball to all of those guys, and how you can maybe do better going forward?) – “Like you said, the good thing is we have some good players that we can get the ball to. The other good thing about that is now they can’t focus on one guy. They know we have several options out there and they we’re not afraid to throw it to any of them, and they can all be productive. So that’s a good thing. Do I wish we could get the ball more to each one of them? Probably so. Is there a better way to get it done? That’s what we’re trying to evaluate right now. We’re trying to evaluate what we need to do better in order to be a more successful and more consistent offense.”
(I wanted to ask you about three backup receivers. We saw WR Jakeem Grant get a few more snaps than WR Isaiah Ford for what might have been the first time. What goes back and forth in your mind regarding which of those two you utilize more on a specific day? And also on WR Lynn Bowden Jr., how is he at this point as a route runner, early in his development as a receiver?) – “I’ll answer the Lynn Bowden one first. He has some natural route-running ability. He has some natural athletic talent. He’s just still in the process of learning everything, the nuances of playing at this level. It’s not the athletic talent. It’s just learning the nuances of being able to compete. Then we have different packages that we use on different weeks. We try to utilize guys in ways that we think are going to be successful for our football team. The number of plays doesn’t affect me as much as the amount of production we’re getting out of each grouping, whatever that grouping might be.”
(I couldn’t help but notice that the first play that QB Tua Tagovailoa ran was a rollout to his left. It looked similar to the play where he got injured at Alabama. I want to know if that was purposeful just to show that he could do it or if it just was happenstance?) – “Don’t give me that much credit. He had just been throwing the ball really well on the move the whole time. I was trying to – they brought the corner off the edge, which was a total shock. I thought I would just give him an easy bootleg throw to complete coming off of his own goal line. It ended up being a lot harder than it was supposed to be.”
(I wanted to go back to your first answer about QB Tua Tagovailoa and his ability to keep evolving and improving. Is there a certain amount of playing time that he might need this year that you would like to see him get this year in order to reach that level and keep improving?) – “No. I hadn’t really thought of it in those terms at all. I think what we’re thinking about is how much can we get him to continue to improve, get him the reps that he gets in practice and get him whatever snaps we can possibly get him. That’s all we are thinking about at this point. Coach (Flores) hasn’t talked to me about a percentage. He hasn’t.”
(I’m going to read you a good stat and a bad stat and I want to get your thoughts on both. You’re just one of four teams who has yet to lose a fumble, but only three teams have thrown more interceptions.) – “Yeah. The first one is a very good stat. The second one is a very bad stat. (laughter) I think we do a good job with ball security. I think (Running Backs Coach) Eric Studesville does a good job of talking about that and we make it a point every week. ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) makes some great plays and he throws the ball sometimes in a spot that is tough. A couple of interceptions, his arm gets hit, the receiver falls down – it’s going to happen. You just try to limit those kind of things as much as you possibly can. He made a lot of great decisions though, that’s for sure.”
(I wanted to ask you about the offensive line and the chemistry that they are trying to develop. Where would you say that it is right now coming off of last week’s performance, and what areas do you think needs improvement?) – “We probably have to do a better job communicating on our inside run game. That’s, if I had to pick a thing, I think that would be the one thing I would choose. I think our pass pro communication has been very good thus far. I think the coaches and Ted Karras runs that show up there and gets everybody headed in the right direction. Those two rookies on the right side, they’ve got a lot of learning to do and now they are relying on each other, and that’s a big challenge. But they’ve done pretty good these past two games. The challenges will continue to get bigger as we go on, but I like how our guys are responding right now. It will be tougher every week because we’re going to start getting everybody’s best shot.”
(I know QB Tua Tagavailoa only played like four or five snaps, but were you able to garner anything from his performance that gives you anything positive or negative to help him grow from?) – “Oh gosh, yes. You go out there and you look at it, and he got it under duress, and made an accurate throw. Then he sat in the pocket on third down and made a throw for a first down. Those are positives. Those are real positives. For a guy that hadn’t played a snap, those are real positive.”
