Adam Gase – August 28, 2017
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Monday, August 28, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase
(What do you hope this year’s team can learn from last year’s 1-4 start?) – “Well, I think that’s something we’ve been really trying to focus on during training camp is start better, just overall in practice. That’s really where it starts for us is do a good job of coming out ready to go, right out the gate and that’s what we’re hoping that transfers over to games early in the season. In the beginning of the year, with one (preseason) game left, it’s hard for us to really focus on anything except what we’ve got going on Thursday. Then once we get past that game, we’ve still got time before that first game. So we’re just going to keep trying to fight to get better and just put ourselves in the best position possible.”
(I know guys are tired of training camp already. What about you as a coach? Are you ready for training camp to be over as well to get the real…?) – “I think it’s a fine line as a coach because you’re always trying to figure out a way to just keep improving and you never want to rush through anything. You want as much time as possible because you feel like you have so little as it is. For me to think let’s hurry up and get to regular season, I’m always … I’m good with keep practicing, keep trying to find ways to get better.”
(How much do you think things will change in terms of sharpness when you start game planning?) – “I think once you kind of hone in what you’re doing, because of training camp, you really have a better idea of what everybody’s going to be able to do and what we’re really looking to do. Then once you get into games, you’re hoping that it gets sharper. You have less guys to work with. You have less things to correct a lot of the time, especially when you’re able to keep your core group together from one year to the next. Hopefully we’ll just keep getting better at what we’re doing and I think right now, we’re trending in the right direction. We’ve just got to keep working on it every day.”
(There was a story/rumor about WR Jarvis Landry possibly being traded. Did you talk to Jarvis specifically about that and do you typically talk to players about that?) – “I did talk to him. I told him there’s no chance he’s being traded and if something that’s not true comes out like that and I’m informed of it, I’m going to approach the player and tell him what really is the story.”
(Was WR Jarvis Landry relieved or did you get the idea that he had been listening to that?) – “I don’t know if he was listening to anything. I just let him know, I was like, ‘There’s no chance that we’re going to trade you.’”
(Your defensive end group, it seems very deep, very talented. What is your assessment of them so far?) – “On paper right now, we look deep. I don’t think any of us will question the talent level there. It’s just once you get going, it’s about how healthy can you stay and how productive we can be down after down. That’s really … You’re kind of at the mercy of the season. You just don’t know what’s going to happen. So right now, it looks good. It’s just we’ve just got to keep working, stay strong all year and keep those guys healthy.”
(On DE Charles Harris, how you and Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke have assessed his first three preseason games?) – “Well, there was a lot of pressures. He was close quite a few times. I think I’ve brought this up before, I really don’t look at the sacks. I look at the quarterback destruction, and he’s been very disruptive. That’s really what we’re looking for. I remember when playing Oakland early in (Khalil) Mack’s career, that first year everybody kept talking about how he didn’t have any sacks and when you’re a coach and you’re watching tape, you’re going we don’t want to be the team that gets this guy rolling because he was close so many times. You know it’s just … that’s how it is. It’s one of those things where everybody wants to look at one stat; but as long as you’re forcing the quarterback to get the ball out quick and he can’t go through progressions because he can feel you, that’s really what you’re looking for.”
(Is there room for opportunity for DE Charles Harris as far as his ability setting the edge in the run game?) – “I think he’s doing a good job with what we’re asking him do. There’s going to be some times where it’s the first time he’s seen a couple of these schemes. We saw some good looks last week. Philly did some really good scheme runs on us that our guys haven’t really had the opportunity to see because of what we do in the running game, and that was a great, great experience for us because they got to see a lot of stuff. There’s a lot of things they did in practice that they didn’t show in the game that we got to see.”
(With the running back position, you’ve got three that are pretty good, but do you feel like you have enough depth there to consider keeping a fourth?) – “Yes, we’ll see how this all plays out. We absolutely are considering all options right now, whether it’s someone that’s already here or somebody that becomes available. I feel like we did get a little lucky last year by having three guys for the entire year that pretty much stayed healthy. We’re going to keep looking at that, we’re going to see how our roster shakes out, see what the health of everybody is after this game, and then we’ll make some decisions after that.”
(Looking ahead, do you have a sense of how Saturday, roster cut down day, is going to be? Is it going to be more complicated for you guys to fill holes, will there be more competition for players you’ve got to call them first?) – “It’s hard to predict anything because you may think you know what’s going on with other teams but you really don’t. You haven’t watched them practice. Some teams will keep guys you wouldn’t think they would keep, but they’ve seen them practice so much. They might not necessarily just say, ‘Hey, the 50 plays they got in the preseason is just a small part of the evaluation.’ For us, it’s always a challenge because we have a lot of guys that we like and we feel like we’re probably going to have to let go of some really good players this year.”
(Can you give us an update on QB Ryan Tannehill’s surgery?) – “You’re really putting me on the spot there, huh? (laughs) He’s still in those early stages, rehabbing. He’ll be back at some point, so I’m sure you guys will see him around. It’s probably still going to be a little time before he gets back around really to building and stuff. In my conversations with him, mostly through text just checking on him – I don’t want bug him too much. I know he gets tired of talking about it. I know he’s grinding already. It’s amazing how fast guys start rehabbing after having surgery.”
(Did you get the sense that it went as well as could be expected or hoped for?) – “Yes, I mean every time someone has surgery, the first thing everybody says is, ‘It went well.’ (laughter)”
(What’s your evaluation of this offensive line heading into the season?) – “We’ve improved. We felt like we had our plan pretty well drawn out, and then Ted (Larsen) goes down and then we had to shift some pieces around and give some other guys some opportunities. We’ll see how it shakes out. We’ve got to get through this game, kind of still do our evaluation here after this game and figure out who’s the right guy for us and are we going to use more than one guy. We’re still working through all of that. We’ve seen a lot of good. We’ve seen some things that we’d like to fix. So, it’s a work in progress right now. I feel good at a lot of spots, but we just want to make sure that we try to tighten it up here over the next 10 days.”
(A couple of injured guys, LB Neville Hewitt and WR Rashawn Scott. Do you have an update on either of them?) – “(With) Neville, we’re still working through some things. We’ll have some good days and then we’ll have a day where it might be a little bit of a setback, so we’re still plugging along with that. Rashawn’s working to just try to get back as fast as possible. It’s good to see him kind of start moving around again. That was a tough one for him to go through. He was a guy that always seemed to spark the rest of the group. He works so hard, doesn’t say much, and I felt bad for him that he didn’t have a chance to compete in training camp; but he’s a guy that we really trust and we feel like he does a lot of good things.”
(The PUP List is a tool you guys can use for WR Rashawn Scott?) – “Yes, absolutely. We’ll see how it shakes out.”
(With C Mike Pouncey, you were saying last week you had him doing four snaps per period, and you guys have had him on and off. Have you settled into the template of what you want to do this season with him?) – “Yes, we have a good idea. We want to see how he feels after today. We’ve been pretty consistent on what we’ve been doing. We’re going to see our practice schedule, when we finalize that, as far as what we’re going to do that first week. How that week goes is just going to be somewhat experimental for us; but we have a good idea of what we want to do and he’s on board with it. Now it’s just going to be how do we feel week after week? Do we need to make an adjustment? So we’re going to be very flexible with this. Really it’s going to be communication with him to see how he feels, and then, like I said, every week could be different.”
(This week, do you have guys that normally because of status or whatever would not play Thursday but you might want them to play Thursday because of continuity? For example, QB Jay Cutler got here a week or two late.) – “Yes, we’re going to talk about that here in the next day and a half. We have a decent idea of what we want to do but there are a couple of things we’re still discussing.”
(With the offensive line, you just mentioned the possibility of using two players at left guard. How deep have you considered that and what are you looking for from a starting left guard?) – “Well, it’s just when you go into the season and you’re not 100 percent sure who has won that job, you sometimes have to go through the season and figure out what’s best for you. Sometimes you might get in a game and somebody might be playing really well and you just roll with it. That’s what you’re always trying to do is figure out what’s the best fit for that game. It’s no different than when you look at personnel groupings, scheme, all of those types of things to figure out what’s the best fit to win that game. Last week, we moved some pieces around in the middle of a series with the ones by starting with Anthony (Steen) and then once Mike (Pouncey) went out, we put (Jake) Brendel in there and then Jesse (Davis) goes in there. It was good for us because we had a different lineup in there with that same group with the quarterback and the backs and with Jay (Cutler) and the receivers so just kind of moving those pieces around, that’s how it could happen in a real game. All of a sudden somebody goes down and we have to pop somebody back in there and re-shuffle some things around. It’s good for us to keep doing that and experimenting with that in practice and then if we can kind of get settled down in a game, that’s ideal. It would be nice if we could go with the same five guys all year long. It’s just a tough position to do.”
(You mentioned how you’re going day to day with DT Jordan Phillips and DT Davon Godchaux. Is it fair to say that based on the last few days, or a couple days, Phillips has had a better…?) – “I don’t know. Who’s out there first? We’ll just keep getting them reps with the ones and the twos. You keep shuffling those guys around. The biggest thing is those guys getting reps, playing each play as well as they can, as hard as they can, doing their assignment. They’re all going to play. We just want whoever is in there with (Ndamukong) Suh to get those guys as comfortable as possible to where they can work well together. It’s the same thing with the d-ends and the d-tackles. That’s all we’re trying to do. We just know we’re going to play more than one guy. I like the fact that those guys are competing as hard as they are and they’ve got their little battle going on, but at the end of the day it’s only making all of us better. That’s really what we’re looking to do.”
(With G/T Jermon Bushrod, pardon me if I’m wrong but I don’t think he’s missed a day of practice this camp.) – “Why do you have to bring that up? (laughter)”
(He’s 30-something…) – “(laughter) I know. I’ve got you. He’s done a good job. He does a good job of taking care of his body. He’s grinding it out. There have been a couple of times where we wanted to give him a day off and we just had so many injuries. I think one time we were down to like eight linemen for a training camp practice. He’s done everything he’s had to do to keep helping us out. Every once in a while we’d like to take care of him and give him a day off and it just hasn’t worked out. He’s done a good job on the days that we haven’t been practicing, he’s taking care of his body. He makes sure that he does every little thing right to help him stay on the field.”
(What is it about DT Davon Godchaux’s skill set and the things that he brings to the table – his attributes. What is it that allows him to…) – “I mean he’s powerful, explosive. He’s a violent interior player. That’s what you’re looking for. He’s done a good job of knowing what to do. When you’re a young player, you can kind of visualize what’s going on and you can talk about it and then execute it on the field. That’s what you’re looking for from all of your young players. The faster they can do that, the better it is.”
(You mentioned that you told WR Jarvis Landry there was no way he was being traded. Do you mind talking about for a minute why he is such a valuable piece to this team and to this offense?) – “He’s one of the guys that brings fire to the offense. All it takes is one play from him and it can ignite a lot of different guys. When he kind of gets in that rhythm where he’s getting targets and making plays that might be 3- or 4-yard gains for most people and he turns them into 15-20 yard gains, the way he does it, it’s so physical. It’s like real football plays. It’s not normal wide receiver plays. When he gets the ball in his hands, it’s like a running back. He really had incredible vision. He can kind of do some things that most guys can’t. You try to get him the ball as much as you can but the other team knows that we’re trying to get him the ball. They’re going to try to take him away and you have to get creative sometimes and try to figure out ways to get him the ball.”
(One other guard question. The body of work so far through camp of T Jesse Davis and C/G Anthony Steen. Is there much gap or do you think very comparable in what they’ve put on tape?) – “I think they’ve both shown some things that we really like. They’re still young players. The more experience they get, the better, and the more we can get them out there. The more looks they see, the better it’s going to get.”
(At the risk of the eye roll that I’m used to getting, when did QB Ryan Tannehill have the surgery and what was repaired? Was it two ligaments?) – “I’m not even going to answer it. (laughter)”
(Why is CB Byron Maxwell not playing like he played in the middle of last year?) – “I think we’ve had spurts where he’s played well. We just need him to keep the consistency that we got last year, especially towards the end. He really did a good job of getting hands on the receivers and making it really difficult for him to release and challenged a lot of balls. We just have to keep getting those opportunities, keep practicing hard, keep doing it right, keep doing what’s being asked of when we’re trying to play physical and really challenge the receivers and let out d-line get there. I think just keep that consistency going. If you practice hard and do it right, I think good things usually happen.”
(Is the technique different? Is he being asked to do stuff he wasn’t being asked to do?) – “No, but sometimes when you’re going against different guys, you almost have that one-on-one matchup. There’s a technique being taught and then sometimes you have to prepare for the individual guy too to where there is some movement within the technique that you can do. There are some tough matchups every once in a while. We just want him to keep working and finding ways to get better. Once the season gets here, we’ll have a better idea of where we’re going with our secondary and if we want to play more than just two corners or if we want to just stick with two guys and roll. We’ll just keep fighting through that with us upstairs and figure out what’s best for our defense.”
