Adam Gase – October 13, 2016
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Thursday, October 13, 2016
Head Coach Adam Gase
(On if S Reshad Jones is doing any better) – “Yes. I mean we’re still going through his rehab process and trying to strengthen the whole groin thing. You do as much as you can, just to try to make it feel better. We’ll see what ends up happening.”
(On RB Arian Foster) – “He’s been doing well. We’re just kind of going through this week and making sure when he feels good enough to go, then that will be when we get him back up. We just have to get through the week and see how it finishes up.”
(On S Reshad Jones down and S Michael Thomas or S Walt Aikens potentially replacing him, how do you decide between experience versus a younger player) – “It’s tough because you’re trying to rep all those guys and you’re trying to come up with a lot of scenarios of if this happens and this guy has to go in this spot, obviously we need some guys to step up if it goes down that way on Sunday. So I know they’re all getting ready. We’re just trying to make sure if (Defensive Coordinator) Vance (Joseph) decides to go with certain packages with certain guys in there, we try to make sure that we keep all those guys involved. Obviously Walt’s got a huge role in special teams as well. When somebody goes down, it affects a lot of different positions, including special teams and kind of the number count there.”
(On where S Walt Aikens’ development has been this year) – “Well I think he’s made … I mean for as good of a special teams players as he was, I think he’s really, really made some strides there. It seems like he had some nagging injuries early in training camp and early in the season, and now I feel like he looks as close to 100 percent as possible. I think back in the backend, he really has a better feel for what we’re doing – his role, his assignments, other people’s assignments. So when you kind of understand the entire defense, it makes your job a little bit easier because you understand where everybody’s supposed to be.”
(On if he anticipates having his original starting five offensive line) – “I’m not going to talk about it. You guys jinxed me last week. (laughter)”
(On if, in theory, he will go with the five starters at offensive line on the depth chart on Sunday if they are available) – “I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see on Sunday.”
(On if it’s true he’s going to make the players shower on Saturdays) – “I don’t know if we’re going to let them shower this week. (laughter)”
(On if it’s a little bit funny now) – “That’s a bad phone call to get. Just trust me. It’s awful.”
(On when RB Arian Foster gets back if he envisions him trying to get carries with RB Jay Ajayi and if it is challenging to work RB Kenyan Drake in) – “Yes we’re just going to … I don’t want to make too many plans and get too far ahead myself. I want to get through the week. We’ll have a plan as far as how we want to do the reps and how many plays we get. If we get more plays in the game, that helps us get more guys in there. We’ll see how it shakes out at the end of the week. I just don’t … I don’t want to plan on one thing and then something pops up on Friday or Saturday. You really have to use the entire week to evaluate.”
(On how RB Arian Foster looks) – “He looks good to me but I’m a couple of credits short of my M.D. (laughter) He looks as good as he possibly can in practice.”
(On if RB Arian Foster looks as good as he did in Week 1) – “He looks normal to me. It’s just sometimes … The way he runs, it’s such a smooth stride, it’s almost … you can’t tell is he full speed? Is he not? He’s so good at what he does as far as that outside-zone scheme that he just makes everything look slow and then he hits it and then blows by everybody. He’s got a real patient running style.”
(On what WR Kenny Stills can do better) – “Well, the last game, that wasn’t really on him. I had him in there quite a bit and we really – let me think, what did we throw the ball, 18 times or something like that? And he didn’t really get a chance to have many targets. We had a certain way we wanted to play that game. Obviously it had to change as kind of things unfolded leading up to the game. He was supposed to be more involved but a lot of the things that he does is more down the field. We weren’t able to do that and it kind of takes away his strength.”
(On if he can plan for or develop QB Ryan Tannehill’s ability to step up in the pocket and buy time) – “It can be developed, definitely. I went through a little bit of that last year where we were kind of doing some things where Jay (Cutler) would be stuck in the back of the pocket a little bit. We just kept working on some drills to where you work on getting a feel of where some bodies can be. You try to do some of those drills where it’s just chaotic, to where you have to start moving around. I think so far (the pocket) hasn’t been as firm as we would like it to be. Obviously, we’d like to get a little bit better in that area. It’s always a point of emphasis. You want to make sure that you can set the apex of the pocket and let those guys run around and step up. You’ve got to be able to step up. Sometimes it might not be directly right in front of you. You might have to slide and find those lanes between the guards and tackles. It’s one of those things, you’re always trying to work on and when you go back and watch some of the film, there might be a couple of times where maybe he could’ve stepped up. But we’re constantly looking at that reel of sacks or pressures or hits to say what could we have done differently? It’s been a little bit on everybody. That’s where when we start cleaning some things up and when teams blitz us, we can actually take advantage of it and beat it. That’s going to start making things a little bit easier, because now when you get some four-man rushes, it creates a little bit of different passing lanes.”
(On how good QB Ben Roethlisberger is at extending plays) – “He’s probably one of the better ones in the league. I think a little bit of it has to do with his size as well. He shakes off, I mean there will be free runners and guys will just fall off of him. He’s a tough guy to bring down; he always has been. Obviously the longer he’s playing, he’s not going to try to move as much because you’re going to get hit a lot and it kind of gets old to you, especially when you start to get years in the league. He still has that ability. He’s a hard guy to bring down.”
(On if the Steelers defense has changed now that Dick LeBeau isn’t there) – “It’ll look similar at times, but there are some things that they are doing different. It’s just like anything else in this league, everybody evolves. Coach LeBeau last week, that looks different than what I saw in 2011 and 2012. That looked different. Sometimes you have to look at the personal you have and you make some adjustments with your scheme. You’re not going to just run the same thing to run the same thing. When you’re together for 12 years with the same group of guys, that system is going to look the same year in and year out. Then all of a sudden Troy (Polamalu) retires and you get a whole bunch of guys moving in and out, that defense has to look different.”
(On how the process works for a veteran player playing in a different position such as DE Cameron Wake playing Sam linebacker last week) – “I think sometimes it depends on who it is. Some guys are not comfortable with doing something that is a little out of their norm. Obviously with his background, he has a lot of flexibility. We were looking to figure out a way to maybe throw something in there that could help us stop the run. He has that flexibility as a guy that can play the position we needed him to play the last couple of weeks. He’s the kind of guy that wants to do whatever he can do to help us win. That’s what he wants to do. That’s why he’s one of the leaders of the team.”
(On if having a safety as one of the league leaders in tackles speaks well of the defense) – “It’s something you’d rather not have. It would be different if it were tackles for loses and things like that; but you’d rather your linebackers being the guys that are leading your team up there in the league. The one good thing is, you know if something does break through, he’s going to figure out a way to get him down. If we improve on our run defense and start fitting things up better and making sure that we’re consistently sound in what we’re trying to do with our defensive scheme, then hopefully those numbers go down.”
(On what he has found to be a good way to motivate a guy to give max effort the majority of the time) – “I think a lot of times, it’s just in you. If you’re a guy that’s not a max-effort guy, it’s tough to bring it out. That’s why you try to draft guys, you try to sign guys that if you have experience with them, you’ve seen them do it in the past, you just try to get that consistency. Sometimes it’s inconsistent. If you can get it to where play-in and play-out and you say ‘Hey, maybe we have to cut the snaps down to where you’re full go all the time,’ then that’s what you do. You try to figure out a way to make it work. You sometimes know when a guy has it in him. You’ve just got to make sure you’re constantly staying on him to give that full effort.”
(On what he has done to address setting the edge and whether he has considered moving DT Ndamukong Suh to the other side of the defensive line) – “I think you have to be careful of taking one of the best players at his position and then trying to put him in a different position or out of position. Now you’re really hurting two spots. Doing something like that, that’s probably a little extreme. You really need guys to do what they’re coached to do (and) execute the scheme. Like I keep saying, until we execute our scheme fully and do it right consistently, it’s hard to evaluate the scheme to say, ‘Is this good or bad?’ Right now, we’re kind of at that crossroad where we’re doing it right enough to where we see a lot of positive, but then we’re doing it wrong too many times to where we have things that happen like last week. The week before in Cincinnati, we were feeling good. And then last week, obviously, we didn’t do it good enough.”
(On whether defending the run is more mental or physical) – “Sometimes it can be mental sometimes, because when you play a team that’s shifting, they start going unbalanced, and they have all kinds of things where they’re trying to figure out ways to get you a little bit out of position. That’s where you can have some of the mental issues occur. A lot of times, it is … For us, it’s being sound with what you do (and) sticking with what you’re being told. The hard part about defense is at the end of the day, it’s about making plays. So, sometimes guys feel like, ‘If I can make this play,’ and when you’re wrong, it really is a problem for a whole bunch of different guys. The really great players, when they decide to make a play, they make the play. Right now, sometimes we’re shooting our gun, and we’re missing. You can’t do that, because now you leave three or four other guys hanging out to dry.”
