Adam Gase – November 10, 2016
Download PDF version
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Head Coach Adam Gase
(You said since September that your team has practicing well. Any theories of why it didn’t translate on the field earlier, but now it’s starting to carry through?) – “I think a little bit of it is being comfortable with the schemes we’re running. It’s always tough when you start – both sides of the ball. You’re learning new techniques and new routes. It takes a second to kind of mesh together. On defense, when you were on the field as much as we were, you have to be so on it with the run fits, because you have to play as a full group. And then offense, we just had so many moving parts – guys in and out. We had I don’t know how many different offensive lines and, (we were) trying to get used to all that. Sometimes it takes a second. That’s why the season is as long as it is. You do have time to fix things. It’s about really more mentally staying with it and keep going back to work and not getting frustrated by necessary results of early in the season.”
(I didn’t notice WR Jarvis Landry out there. Is there anything you can tell us about that?) – “Yesterday him and (WR) Kenny (Stills) both … After practice they were not right as far as what we put on the injury report. We held them out today. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes, see if we can get them back in practice. Right now, it has been a day-to-day thing.”
(Illness or injury?) – “It’s injury. I think we had Kenny (Stills) with a calf and Jarvis (Landry) with a shoulder.”
(How did WR Jarvis Landry get the shoulder injury?) – “I think when you play the way he does … Obviously, for him, I’m sure he hasn’t been 100 percent every week. When you’re a guy like he is, you don’t really say anything, you just keep playing. When we’re in practice, he plays physical. If a ball gets thrown up in the air, he goes and gets it. He treats everything like a game. A lot of times, he ends up hitting the ground pretty hard or colliding with somebody. I just think it’s that part of the season where he’s banged up.”
(You guys have been pretty patient with the rookie receivers – WR Leonte Carroo and WR Jakeem Grant. Where are they in their development and are they ready to contribute in base packages?) – “We keep trying to put those guys in there and get them rolling a little bit, so they can get a feel for the game, because we know we’re going to need them both at some point. It’s hard to keep those guys healthy. Obviously, the last game it was obvious that DeVante (Parker), his body just wasn’t reacting the way that he thought it was going to leading up to the game. Kenny (Stills), he gets sick and basically was out. So, Carroo had to step in there and play more plays then he has probably played since college. Jakeem, we keep trying to move him in there, because it is good to get him on the field and let him get a feel for playing wide receiver instead of just being a returner. They’re doing a good job as far as trying to keep up with the older guys. It is harder though when you haven’t had as many reps and now all of a sudden you’re thrown into a game. We keep trying to develop these guys and get them ready to go. It takes time. It’s not easy being a rookie wide receiver.”
(How did they practice today?) – “They did a good job. I know there’s a lot of pressure on those two guys. They had to take a lot of reps. They’re still doing scout team, so it was a lot of running for them today. Right now, it’s going to be about getting their bodies recovered to make sure that they feel good on Sunday.”
(So, nobody’s really healthy at this point. Everybody gets beat up. But I’ve been hearing WR DeVante Parker is not right or hurt or not 100 percent for like three months. What is it? And yet he’s practicing and playing? Why can’t he get healthy?) – “Sunday was little surprise for me, because he had a really … What did we go, Tuesday, Wednesday last week? Tuesday, it looked like he was feeling himself out. And then Wednesday, he looked like the guy that’s a first-round draft pick. So, we were feeling really good going into Sunday. And then Friday, sometimes it’s hard to tell. You don’t have … We were working on red zone and things like that, so it’s hard to tell anything. (He) didn’t really have to open up. For whatever reason Sunday, things weren’t working right for him. He tried to open it up, but sometimes he just wasn’t able to go. Sometimes it’s hard to explain things. I guess I’ve been in a few situations with younger wide receivers. With Demaryius (Thomas), it was the same way. It was like you couldn’t buy a break. It was just something all the time that was bothering him, whether it would be an Achilles, a hamstring, his hand. I think he broke his hand one time or his fingers. He couldn’t catch a break. And then sometimes it just takes getting a little streak going where you feel good two, three weeks in a row and then you start getting very confident and you feel like, ‘Alright, I blew past that part of my career.’ It’s going to take some time to say, ‘I’ve had a couple of good weeks in a row. I’m alright.’ When you’re coming off any kind of soft tissue injury, you can’t explain it. You keep trying to do things to make yourself feel as 100 percent as possible.”
(Have you decided on a curfew yet for this trip?) – “I have. I don’t have to tell you everything.” (laughter)
(As a follow up though, where do you draw the line between trusting the professionalism of your guys and giving them some freedom?) – “We’ve had a lot of things that we’ve done leading up to this point, and it started in training camp. I told those guys there’s going to be a lot of things I’m going to do to see if we can handle it. Really, there’s a lot of little traps to see if somebody screws it up. Guys have done a good job of making sure that any time they’ve had a chance to have some freedom – as far as when we’re either on the road or in training camp – they’ve handled their business correctly. I think that Seattle trip was a big test for us. Being the first game of the year, we went out there early, and guys handled it like pros. Any time we’ve done anything, whether it be here or on the bye week, guys did a good job. That’s a scary four days for a coach, because you just never know what’s going to happen, you don’t know where everybody’s at. And the same thing with this trip: they know we’re going to be out there 11 days. They know why we’re out there. This isn’t a vacation. You’re trying to make it as comfortable as possible like we’re playing a home game – especially when you stay there after the first game – but you do have to trust your guys to do the right thing. Hopefully, we got enough guys that are leaders that will step up and remind guys, ‘Don’t ruin this for everybody.’
(Do you look at this as sort of a bonding experience? They haven’t really been sequestered together since training camp. Could this be a time where maybe they come together?) – “We felt like that way in Seattle. We thought that was the first time where we started seeing some different groups hanging out with each other. We saw a lot of guys going out to eat together, and it wasn’t guys that you would expect to see gravitate towards each other. We did think that was a good thing for us at that time, because we really hadn’t had that opportunity in training camp – we’re here, they’re in the hotel – it was kind of back and forth, and they didn’t really have that opportunity. This is going to be something that’s probably going to be good for us. We’ve had four home games in a row, we’ve been here for quite a while, and getting away will probably be a good thing for us.”
(Chargers DE Joey Bosa – four sacks and I think 13 quarterback hits. Why is he so effective? Why does he have those numbers?) – “I think a lot of it starts with the energy and attitude he plays with. He plays every snap – no matter the down-and-distance, time of the game – he plays every snap and treats it as a meaningful snap. There are no plays off for him. He has got a motor that keeps on going. I feel like whether it’s him or really that group together, it seems like they feed of each other. You don’t really see anybody as a weak link, because all those guys play so fast, and I feel like that’s why they’ve been able to do what they’ve been doing as far as they’re getting pressure with four. They’re hitting the quarterback; they’re getting sacks. They’re making it tough for teams to block them. Those guys consistently for 60 minutes play hard, and they sell out every game.”
(You’ve watched LB Jelani Jenkins now practice with a brace not necessarily a club. Where is the comfort level with him from a tackling standpoint?) – “I haven’t heard him really complain as though he felt like it would be an issue. I know anytime that you’re having any kind of restriction on your hand – and you’re at a position where you have to use your hands – I’m sure it’s not the easiest thing to do. But I feel like mentally, he seems to be in the right place, and he has his game plan of how he’s going to approach this. Hopefully, we can keep going through the rest of the week, and he feels good with everything and, he’s out there. We’re going to give him time to make that decision. It’s really going to be on him how comfortable he is, but it seems as though things are heading in the right direction for us, and he feels good about it.”
(LB Spencer Paysinger led the team in tackles last week despite coming in there as a sub. What has he brought to the equation?) – “He did a really good job. He was very assignment-sound last week. When he had opportunities to make plays, he made them. He put himself in good position, and then he finished the play. There have been a couple times during the season where he has had a couple rough games to where I’m sure he was frustrated as though he had some chances to make some plays and didn’t make them. He made a lot of plays last week. I feel like it started with the fact that his knowledge of the defense is so much greater than what it was early in the season. He’s really focused on being not just a special teams guy, but being a defensive player as well. Anytime that you focus like that and make sure (that), ‘I want to be part of the solution as far as if somebody goes down, I can jump in there, (and) we don’t miss a beat.’ I feel like he has created that mindset to be able to be next man up.”
