Chan Gailey – October 27, 2020
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Tuesday, October 27, 2020
Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey
(I’m sure you’re going to get a ton of QB Tua Tagovailoa questions so I wanted to get one in first about the previous quarterback, QB Ryan Fitzpatrick. Obviously you guys are as close as you can be. A, what are your emotions now knowing the news that you’ve had to help deliver and B, how is “Fitz” handling it?) – “You’d need to talk to ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) to talk about that to get that answered. He’s the best one to do that and yeah, I’m close with ‘Fitz,’ but guess what? I like Tua. I like Tua a lot and I think he’s got a great future, so I’m excited for him. We do what’s best for the football team all the time. That’s what we try to do, so that’s where we are with this thing right now.”
(So everyone knows that the starting quarterback gets the vast majority of the reps in practice with the first team. Was there a point before he was named starter that QB Tua Tagovailoa cut into that number or got more reps than normal as the backup? And when was that?) – “No. We gave him the same number of reps most every week.”
(What are some of the benefits of having RPO – run/pass options – available as an option as a play, and how does that align with QB Tua Tagovailoa’s strengths, the quick passing game elements?) – “Well, he did a decent amount of that in college. There’s different types of RPOs. There’s pre-snap RPOs, there’s post-snap RPOs. We use some of both but mostly pre-snap RPOs is what we have done. What I remember him doing in college is he was good at reading and seeing that and as time goes on, we can adjust and maybe use a few more of those to fit into what he has done in the past.”
(Obviously coaching QB Ryan Fitzpatrick again was a big reason why you joined the team here. If the organization decided that maybe trading away Ryan Fitzpatrick was a move they wanted to make at the trade deadline how would you kind of take that in and how do you think you would probably respond to that?) – “I can’t speculate on that. I have no idea. I like him. I love having him here. I’d hate to see him go, but somebody would step in. That’s the way this business is. We do what we think is best for the football team in every decision whether it’s who’s here, who’s not here, who’s playing, who’s not playing, who’s backing up, who’s a practice squad guy, who’s not a practice squad guy. You make the decisions you feel like are best for the football team all the time. That’s what we do.”
(I wanted to ask you about the left-handed side of things. When you go to a left-handed quarterback, which as you know is very rare these days in the NFL, what changes for you as an offensive coordinator and what changes have you noticed perhaps for a defense trying to contain a lefty at quarterback?) – “I would think that if somebody – the No. 1 thing that I would think about is if somebody is trying to make a right-handed quarterback scramble, they would want him to scramble to the left. They’d probably have to change that thought process to make a left-handed quarterback scramble to his right. That would be one of the first things that I would think about. For us, we practice things both left and right, so it doesn’t change a lot for us. If we’ve had a bootleg that’s been to the right for ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick), then it’s been on Tua (Tagovailoa)’s wristband every week that he runs it to the left. We practiced it all both ways, so nothing really changes for us.”
(I wanted to ask you about QB Tua Tagovailoa’s Tuesday meetings. They’re with Head Coach Brian Flores, is what he said, but I don’t know if you’re also involved in that. When you do have meetings with Tua and go over film, what are those conversations like and what are you watching? Are you watching games of QB Ryan Fitzpatrick playing? Or Tua in practice?) – “Most of the time you’re watching the team we’re playing that week. We’re talking about how we’re going to defeat them. Right now, we’re only talking about the Rams. That’s all we’re talking about. We’re not talking about anything else. We’re trying to get ready to defeat them and defeat what they do and take advantage of our personnel against them and see how we match up. Those are the things that we’re working on and that’s all that we work on.”
(On that topic of the Rams, we saw DT Aaron Donald on TV last night doing what he does every single week. What’s the best way to get that guy blocked and how does he kind of adjust your offensive game plan?) – “Somebody made a statement that a lot of people want to know where a safety is or where a linebacker is. You want to know where (Donald) is. Is he lining up on the left or the right? Is he lining up on the tackle or on the guard? You want to know where he is and you want to scheme some things to help out whoever’s got him. At the same time, you can’t change everything that you’re doing. You’ve got to depend on our good players playing well against him too. We’ve got to depend on that a little bit.”
(I know coaches try to anticipate every possible situation. I’m wondering over the course of your career, how much time have you spent on not scoring when the other team is trying to let you score, and how much that has even been on your radar?) – “We’ve talked about it. It’s not like it’s something that you consider on a daily basis; but we’ve talked about it. We try to educate our players into the situation that’s at hand. At the same time, you can negate that if you want to and just take a knee.”
(How do you think QB Tua Tagovailoa will do?) – “I think he’ll play great. That’s what you anticipate. You anticipate him going out there and seeing the defense, and knowing where to throw the football and making good throws and making good decisions in the run game, as far as getting us where we’re supposed to get blocking-wise. I expect him to play excellent; but that’s the way I feel about every week going into every game. You think you’re going to play great. You’re disappointed when you don’t score every time.”
