Adam Gase – December 28, 2016 (Conference Call)
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Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Head Coach Adam Gase Conference Call with New England Media
(Just wanted to start and ask you, you guys are 6-1 at home. Maybe talk about the importance of home field advantage for you guys. Also, this time of year it’s typically warm down there and a cold weather team like New England coming in there. I was wondering your thoughts on the weather giving you guys a little advantage given you practice in those conditions a lot more.) – “Well as far as winning games at home, I feel like we had a nice little stand there when we had multiple home games in a row and we lost one early, we won one, then we lost one and we got kind of got on a little bit of a run. We had a little home streak there to where I think our guys really got comfortable playing in our stadium. It’s a little different feel from what at least what I remember in the past when I would come down here. With the canopy, it gets pretty loud. Our players feed off that. Our crowd’s been great. Obviously, when you win a couple games, the louder it would get on third down and in big situations. So that’s been a good environment for our players. I think it really helps get them juiced up during the game. And then as far as the weather goes, I don’t know how much I really put into that. That’s kind of like when we go up north, everybody says, ‘You’re not going to play well because of the cold.’ At the end of the day, you’re talking three and a half, four hours. NFL players, they adapt. They know what it is and they just roll with the punches.”
(Matt Moore has stepped in for you guys. What are your thoughts on the job he’s done so far?) – “He’s done a good job. It hasn’t been … The first game he came into against Arizona, it was pretty much a monsoon down here, so he did a great job of making sure we had possession of the ball at the end of each series. He made some really big plays at the end of the game that helped us win that game and did a good job against the Jets and executed exactly what we needed to do. Last week, we had some good plays, we had some bad plays. I know there’s some things that he wants to fix but for a guy that hadn’t played in four and a half years coming off the bench, that was … It’s been very impressive to just see his commitment to what we’ve been doing and his professionalism. A lot of guys, after that much time not playing, can fall asleep at the wheel sometimes. It’s unusual to think that because this is really NFL players. This is their job. But it happens. I’ve seen it happen in the past with certain players and he didn’t allow that to happen. So when he had his opportunity, he came in and he was able to execute.”
(Linebackers Coach Matt Burke is Central Massachusetts native. I’m just wondering what you’ve seen from him and the contributions he’s brought to your staff this season.) – “He’s done a great job. I was really happy we were able to add him to our staff. The continuity him and Vance have are outstanding. The communication within the game, it’s really good to hear those guys communicate within the drives. He’s been very helpful to me. Very smart. He’s a smart coach. Obviously, being a Dartmouth grad doesn’t hurt us. He’s a guy that I lean on heavily when we talk before games as far as situations. He’s seen a lot of football over his career. He processes things very quickly, so he’s a good guy for us to have on the staff.”
(Just wondering about your perception of the Patriots ability of the defense when it comes to tackling. I’ve watched them for a while and they just are a team, especially in the secondary, that are very good at getting players on the ground. Sometimes, I think that might be a little bit underrated in 2016.) – “I think they do a good job of making sure that they get guys that have that ability to start with and then that’s always a good starting point – which they do – and then they develop them even further along with the coaching staff they have. The emphasis they put on it, you can see if there is a missed tackle at some point in the game, it gets corrected. It gets corrected down the road. I think it’s just that consistency of not getting complacent ever. I think as the season goes on and so many things they do in all three phases, there’s always improvement throughout the year and that’s just the sign of a really good coaching staff and it’s a sign of players that are willing to learn and willing to put forth the effort to get better during the season.”
(On a different note, I know that you’re familiar with, I don’t want to say close with Patriots Offensive Coordinator / Quarterbacks Coach Josh McDaniels, but I know that you guys have been together in the past. As he looks at opportunities elsewhere, and I don’t want you to spitball on any of that stuff, but what did you look for in an opportunity to take on a head coaching job? I know that Josh is certainly going to be a candidate. What would you think his suitability is and what does a candidate look for these days?) – “Well the one thing I can say for myself going through the 2014, after the 2014 season, and having the ability to interview with five teams, it was probably really good that I did not get one, and I was able to learn from those experiences through the interview process. Then coming into this last year when I went through the interview process, I had a better feel of the questions that they were going to ask me. But at the same time, I had more questions I was ready to ask. Really, at the end of the day, I was just going off of how I felt with the guys that I was talking to. That’s why this place felt right to me. I felt good when I interviewed and I felt good about the people I was talking with and interviewing with. I felt like it was a good group for me to work with. I think it’s just something that I did, learned being with Josh in those years in Denver where our discussions all the time were just kind of positive, as far as if you ever get a situation where I had this opportunity, it was about how do you fit in that organization and how do you work with other people in that organization.)
(Last week, the Patriots threw a touchdown to a guy named TE Matt Lengel who never caught a pass before in the NFL. He’s only playing about 10 snaps per game. How much, when they do something like that, how much does that add to your preparation? Is that an extra piece you now have to account for?) – “Any time that a guy’s active for a game, you have to account for him. And especially just being with (Patriots Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach) Josh (McDaniels) for those couple years, he always did a great job as far as finding the right matchups, finding weak spots on the defense, finding the matchup he needed to expose someone in the red zone. He used those players to their strengths. So if a guy is really good at one or two things, those are the two things that he would emphasize. I feel that’s something I learned from him and really has helped my career, since we’ve been apart over the last six years, is taking that formula for myself. You just see, he’s still doing the same thing. He finds the right matchups, he finds what those guys do well and he uses them in every game.”
(Along those same lines, how do you think Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach Josh McDaniels has done adapting the Patriots’ offense since TE Rob Gronkowski went down?) – “It’s not surprising. It has been consistent over his whole career. He figures out what the guys that he has available to him can do, and he really puts an emphasis on that and doesn’t try to go outside that ability that those players have. He really focuses on, ‘What can I get this guy to do to help us win the game?’”
(For you guys, obviously, first playoff berth since 2008. I imagine there’s a lot of excitement inside the building with the fans. What’s your challenge for helping guys realize that that’s not necessarily the end result, the end goal?) – “Our guys have done a good job of bunkering down and focusing on the task at hand. We haven’t really talked about it that much. Obviously, when they tell you that you are in, we at least can say, ‘We’re going to get to play another game after Week 17,’ but our focus has to be on who we’re playing this week. That has really been our mantra all year long as far as we’re taking it one game at a time. We’re a young team. We haven’t been together for 10 years to where we can focus on that next week. We have to really focus and dial in on the task at hand. We’ve been such a small-focused team since the beginning of the season that we’re not afforded that opportunity to look past this week.”
(As you’ve established the culture in your first year there, I’m curious [about] your thoughts on General Manager Chris Grier, his contribution to what you guys are building.) – “Chris did an unbelievable job in the draft. He made sure we got the right type of players that we were looking for. He basically … He runs that whole deal on draft day and made sure that everything was set up the right way. At the end of the day, he made that happen on draft day to plug the right guys into what we wanted to start building. All these guys have contributed in some form or fashion, whether it be on the active roster or within the practice squad. When you go through a draft and you still have all your draft picks and guys are still getting better and they’re the right type of people for our organization, that’s to me … I know at the end of the day we’re going to be measured probably three or four years down the road to see where everybody is at, but right now, guys have been doing exactly what we need them to do and helping our organization go in a positive direction.”
(What have you learned about General Manager Chris Grier as a football guy?) – “For me, personally, I think I’ve learned a lot as far as the scouting realm – what he’s looking at, the type of players that he’s looking at. I don’t know how many guys I’ve been around in the front office that are as inquisitive as he is with trying to get exactly what you want and adjusting, really, what they were looking for from the time before I got here and throughout the spring and before the draft to make sure that whatever guys we did go out and draft – or brought in, in college free agency or even free agency – that they were the type of guys that would fit into the culture that we were trying to build.”
(Had you known General Manager Chris Grier before) – “I did not know him before.”
(I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about QB Ryan Tannehill. How is he doing? Are you guys holding out hope that he’ll be back for the playoffs?) – “I’ve purposefully avoided our doctors. I haven’t asked. I told them, ‘If something changes, let me know.’ I just know that he’s working hard to try to get as healthy as he can. I have no idea what our timetable is. Right now, we’re playing it every week of saying, ‘Matt (Moore) is our quarterback until somebody tells us different.’ That’s, really, the take I’ve been coming into each week as.”
(QB Ryan Tannehill seemed to have probably the best year of his young career so far. What did you learn about him as a player and as a person this year?) – “I didn’t really realize what a competitor he was. Sometimes when you’re outside and you have very minimal views of a guy, because you’re really worrying about your next opponent and last year me being in a different conference, we didn’t have a lot of crossover tape. Just being around him every day and seeing how he works and seeing how he practices and then competes in the game, there are so many positive things that it was a shame that he got hurt, because I really felt like it was slowing down for him. He had a great grasp of the offense. I thought he was doing a great job as far as leading our team. It’s one of those things. It’s a tough pill to swallow to see him have to go through this, especially when we’re having as much success as we were. But that’s football. If it was easy, everybody would do it, and that’s what makes this a great game. Now he has got to figure out a way to try to get healthy and contribute for us down the road.”
(You worked with a lot of quarterbacks. You’ve watched a lot of quarterback tape over the years. What do you think of the tape that QB Tom Brady has been putting out there at age 39?) – “It’s probably right on course for what you would expect when he came back. You knew he was going to come back and do exactly what he is doing – cutting people up and moving the ball and being an impactful leader and finding ways to score points and win games. He has done it his whole career. I’ve seen him play so many times being in Denver and unfortunately being on the wrong side of the scoreboard a lot of times, but sometimes when you get to see a guy like that play, people take it for granted, and I was lucky enough to be around a future Hall of Famer and when you look back on it, you really appreciate what guys like Tom and Peyton (Manning) bring to the table, because they’re really league-changing-type players. They make the league better. All of those young guys look up to a guy like Tom, and they want to be like him, and they want to do the things that he has done. He has been nothing but the ultimate pro and ultimate competitor. He’s a fun guy to watch play when you’re not playing him. When you’re playing him, it’s a very frustrating thing.”
(I know you talked about it a little bit with your reporters down there – I think they may have been asking you about your approach personnel-wise in this game and you guys are going to keep playing in the playoffs next week – do you manage it? Not the whole idea of this resting starters thing, but do you manage certain guys maybe differently than you would have knowing that you got a game next week and that game could decide if your season is over?) – “I think it’s such a hard … Whoever you go into the game active (with), you’re playing. I think it’s hard to have a guy up and say, ‘You’re going to play 10 plays, and we’re going to pull you out.’ I look at it the same way when you bring a guy up, and he’s active, and all of a sudden you’re two series in and he says, ‘I can’t go anymore.’ It makes it very difficult on a lot of different phases of the game, and it puts pressure on other people to have to play more snaps. The way that we look at this is this is a regular season game that means a lot to us. Whoever is healthy and whoever is active, those guys are going to play.”
