Adam Gase – September 26, 2016 (Conference Call)
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Monday, September 26, 2016
Head Coach Adam Gase Conference Call with Cincinnati Media
(On the challenges of dealing with a short week) – “For us, it’s about trying to get recovered as quickly as possible from the last game. Make sure we’re sharp as far as what we are putting in game plan wise and then being able to cover as large amount as possible. (There’s) a lot of meeting time, you’ve got to do a lot of walk-throughs. The toughest part is jumping on the plane (and) getting to the hotel. Playing a night game, at least it gives you a chance that next morning, that Thursday morning, to clean anything up or answer any questions that guys have.”
(On do you handle game prep with Bengals LB Vontaze Burfict coming off of suspension) – “For him especially, already knowing the system that is being run and when things don’t change too much for you, it’s really going to be about conditioning level for that player. It is tough because you can’t really simulate it just by running. It’s kind of getting into that football shape. I’m sure for him it would be tough for him to come in there and play 75, 70 snaps or something like that. But I’m sure whatever amount of snaps he plays, he’s a max-effort guy and he’s going to sell out. Having his former coach (Linebackers Coach Matt Burke) on our staff, he’s told stories before of ‘Hey, we thought he was going to play 25 snaps one game, the guy goes in there and plays 60.’ He gets very high praise from Matt Burke.”
(On what was the biggest thing he liked from Defensive Coordinator Vance Joseph to hire him as the defensive coordinator) – “Any time that you get a chance to bring in somebody that you’ve competed against and that you’ve worked with and that you know very well. His ability to be multiple … I’m getting interviewed for a couple of jobs and there was a 4-3, 3-4 in his flexibility in both of those defenses always makes it really easy for a guy that’s interviewing because you’d love to be able to go into a place and not have wholesale changes of you flipping around the whole personnel group. If you can go in there and say, ‘Hey, they were a 4-3. We’d like to build around that instead of starting over.’ With Vance’s flexibility, that was such a big deal for me. Just knowing his personality and knowing the kind of presence he has around players and knowing how hard he was to compete against myself, that just really was an easy decision for me, as far as somebody that I wanted to be with me, as far as my defensive coordinator.”
(On liking the idea of bringing in a defensive coordinator that was in his first year at that position and if it was a nice fit) – “I think so. For me, it was about finding the person that I trusted because I knew that I wanted to stay heavily involved with the offense. I wanted to call the plays. I wanted somebody that I knew when I turned that side of the ball over, it was almost like he’s the head coach of the defense. My trust level with (Defensive Coordinator) Vance (Joseph) is extremely high and I know whatever message we want to deliver as an entire team, it’s going to be carried out through him as well. I guess I’ve just been in a couple of experiences where I’ve seen things not go so well, because a first-time head coach goes and tries to hire somebody he doesn’t really know, not really sure how that’s going to work out and there becomes some conflict as far as philosophy. In our discussions before this went down, I just felt like we were on the same page.”
(On the development of QB Ryan Tannehill) – “I think right now, the stage we’re at is really getting comfortable with the offense. There are some moving parts that occur from week to week. It’s easy to say, ‘Should development occur quicker?’ But when you’re counting on 10 other guys to do their job in a first-year system, we’re going to have our bumps, and we’re going to have our missteps just like (in) this last game. Everybody was taking their turn. But as far as him coming along as a passer, making decisions – things like that – I feel like I’ve seen a guy that has gotten better from the time I’ve gotten here in the spring. I see a guy that really wants to work at it and make sure that he’s part of the solution. We’re going to keep developing. That’s what we have to do. We’ve come out of the gate and out of our (first) four opponents, three of them were in the playoffs last year. It’s a good measuring stick for us to at least see where we’re really at.”
(On whether he is content with the running back by committee formula with RB Arian Foster out) – “We’re going to have to see how our injury status plays out. Having four guys right now in that spot, I think it’s probably a little bit of a luxury for us. We’re going to have to see how it plays out. We’re trying to see who’s going to be our guy to really step up. It seems like … (Kenyan) Drake missed most of the preseason and training camp. He got to play that last one. Damien (Williams) was in and out and was pretty steady for us. (Isaiah) Pead did some good stuff when he was playing with the second unit and the third unit. Jay (Ajayi) was our starter for the entire spring and training camp. We’re looking for that guy to emerge as a guy that we can really count on. We’d really love to get it to where we use multiple backs. In this system, that’s what you’re looking for. You’re not looking for one guy to carry the load. I’ve always liked to have two, three backs that can go in there and take two series and keep those guys fresh and play all three downs. I’d rather have guys that can go seven to 10 plays than a guy that goes two or three, comes out and then we keep subbing back and forth. I like staying on the ball. I like keeping it moving. If a guy can stay on the field, that’s really ideal for me.”
(On the RB Isaiah Pead signing) – “When we worked him out, he had a pretty good workout. He’s always said that he didn’t think he had a very good workout but he did enough for us to impress us. Obviously he had some issues before. We basically just told him, ‘Hey man, this is day-to-day. Let’s have one good day at a time.’ He’s done a good job of that. The thing for him is I don’t think there were a lot of questions whether or not he was a good player coming out. Some of the things that we had heard that he had done in the past, as far as what he did with (Rams Head) Coach (Jeff) Fisher and those guys, it’s just kind of keeping it focused on football and not letting any outside distractions be an issue for him. Once we kind of let him get going and he started getting an opportunity in preseason games, he really flashed. He’d always do a good job in training camp. He had a little bit of a setback there where he had a little bit of a soft tissue injury, which he missed some time in training camp. He keeps doing things right. We’re just going to keep trying to figure out how much he can actually help us from a game-to-game basis.”
(On what opportunities do his wide receivers have to make plays against a Bengals defense that struggled last week) – “Just watching the tape, it’s easy to say statistically where you feel like there were a lot of negative things going on (with the Bengals defense last week). Really, it was just those two plays; you get those big plays and it just kind of skews everything. For the most part they did do a good job of holding down a lot of their receivers, it’s just two big plays can kind of change the narrative for them. My experience playing against this group, I’ve had a little bit of a rough go against them. Obviously (Dolphins Defensive Coordinator) Vance (Joseph) was the DBs coach (for the Bengals) so he reminds me about it quite a bit. I know the challenge these guys bring to us. The good thing is we’ve got three guys that are very competitive and they love going against guys that are established guys, that are veterans, that are savvy, that understand how to play football as well as these guys do. I think they’re looking forward to the challenge because for them, it’s another way to see where they stand in the league.”
(On how concerned he is about the rushing defense at this point) – “We had a rough go this last game, for sure. We’ve got to clean a lot of things up. It just seems like one person is taking their turn. It’s a new guy every play and we just have to kind of get back to basics and we have to get back to some of our fundamentals of being very gap sound (and) making sure everybody’s doing their job. We can’t have anybody freelancing. That’s a bad mix for a defense as far as if one guy is off in his zone, it kind of throws the linebackers off. Now all of a sudden our fits are wrong and that’s when you’re getting these 8-, 10-, 12-yard runs. The biggest thing, at least in my experience, is when you play a defense that is tough to run the ball against – they’re very sound, they tackle well – and really it’s that group, that seven or eight guys that are working together to make sure that everybody is doing their job correctly.”
(On how much of an emotional boost it was to get an overtime win last week and how much that carries over as far as confidence of the players) – “However it ends up happening, as far as winning a game, you’re always happy that you win. Obviously that wasn’t exactly the way we wanted it to go down. We had a lead, lost a lead, everybody kind of … we didn’t really finish the way we wanted to. But we had an opportunity to figure out a way to get the win at the end of the day. Any time you can close one out and you win a game, that’s a step in the right direction. We have to try to figure out a way not to put ourselves in a position of having a lead, losing a lead, putting ourselves in position to where possibly we could have lost the game. Those are a few things that we have to clean up and what we have to do is we have to fall back on some of the basic fundamentals that we work on every day in practice, and that’s guys just doing their job. That was our biggest Achilles heel. We had way too many mental errors and little tiny details that occurred to us at the end of the game that almost cost us the game.”
