Adam Gase – December 8, 2017
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Friday, December 8, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Do you want to read the injury report aloud for all of us?) – “Same as yesterday except for (Ndamukong) Suh and (Cameron) Wake will practice.”
(DT Ndamukong Suh said that it’s not up to him whether he takes days off for practice. Is that something that has been a difficult thing to get him to do, because he doesn’t seem like someone who’s inclined to ever want to take days off?) – “Anytime we’ve ever asked him to do anything that we feel like is in his best interest, he has never argued with us. He has been great with everything we’ve asked, from some of the things we’ve asked him to do on defense, things like that. He’s a guy that takes … Sundays are … He’s getting after the quarterback and doing a great job in the run game, but he takes a pounding. He has got two bodies on him every time.”
(I’m sure you’ve seen by now, Patriots QB Tom Brady yelling at Offensive Coordinator Josh McDaniels sidelines last week against Buffalo. Does that happen more often than we know and how do you handle that as a coach and a play caller?) – “It does. It happens a lot. You just move on. It takes a minute. It’s happened. I went through it with Peyton (Manning) a couple times.”
(I was going to ask that.) – “It just depends on whether or not cameras catch it or not.”
(Why does that work for some teams? It seems like that fires them up, but other teams, it can kind of make it tough or tear things a part.) – “I think a lot of times it just depends on the situation and the relationship you have. When you’ve got two people that are very competitive and striving for perfection, it’s going to happen every once in a while.”
(I asked Offensive Coordinator Clyde Christensen this earlier: it has only been a couple of weeks since the first meeting with the Patriots. Is that enough time to look and see if there has been any significant changes on film that you can exploit?) – “It’s always going to be … Every week you gain as much information as you can. When you play these guys, they’re going to look at what you do and really try to take away anything that you’ve shown that you’ve done well, if you have any tendencies that you’ve developed even from one game. It could be run-pass tendency. Maybe we were heavy this last game that tips them off or something. When you do your homework and go through all the steps, sometimes you might find something that you missed the first time.”
(Is there a greater challenge for a play caller than going up against that defense?) – “Like is it hard to go against this defense?”
(Against the Patriots defense, for you calling plays, do you look at it as the ultimate challenge or is it just the same every week?) – “I’ve played these guys 12 times in my career. I’ve called six or seven games against them. (Patriots Defensive Coordinator) Matt Patricia knows me pretty well. That’s the challenging part. How much hasn’t he seen? You just keep trying to find ways to move the ball. They do a good job of changing things up and showing you different looks. Every year it’s different. That’s what makes that whole organization tough to compete against because they’ve got good players and at the same time, they have really good coaches that make it very tough on your offensive and defensive play callers and special teams. They give you enough changes over year to year and then as the season goes on, they evolve. They figure out where their strengths are and they really emphasize those and emphasize all the good stuff and they stay away from the things that they don’t do as well.”
(Are you comfortable with RB Kenyan Drake getting 23 carries or in an ideal world maybe a little bit less?) – “I’m for whatever helps us win the game. That’s really what it comes down to.”
(As a play caller, when somebody is trying to take something away from you, whether it’s the Patriots or whoever, how do you decide when to force that matchup or when to just say, “Alright, you got me. We’re going somewhere else?”) – “I usually have an idea what’s going on going into the game. It’s not breaking news to anybody that I’m pretty sure I know who most teams try to take away on the offense. You just try to make it hard on them and try to keep Jarvis (Landry) doing the things he does well (and at the) same time, don’t make him a sitting duck where he lines up in the same spot play after play after play and everybody knows where he’s at. We made a big emphasis of it this offseason where I know he always wants to do more and always wants to be put in different spots. He has done a good job of learning all those different positions. We’re just going to keep trying to find ways to get him the ball and get it in his hands quickly, so he can make some plays after he catches the ball. It seems like he has made a lot of plays downfield. I don’t know if I gave him enough opportunities last year where this year, given the opportunities, he has made plays down the field. Unfortunately, probably some of his best plays have been called back because of a penalty on some of those third-and-longer plays.”
(How did WR Jarvis Landry do last game against New England? I think seven receptions for 80 yards or I think eight for 70.) – “He’s a tough guy to match up. Even on that fourth down, they had him doubled and he still found a way to find a little bit of a hole. The guy made a great play and jarred the ball enough loose to where he hit the ground before he could gather that. Even when he gets doubled, he finds a way to get open.”
(Lining WR Jakeem Grant up in the backfield, what was the thought process behind that and is that something that he particularly enjoyed getting the opportunity to do?) – “We were kind of down on numbers, so that’s your (Kenyan) Drake answer. We’re trying to take a carry off of Drake. We weren’t really sure what was going to happen with Senorise (Perry). He was in the concussion protocol, so we had some other ways to carry the football if we needed to. We thought it looked good all week in practice, so we gave it a shot. It might’ve been close … If he cuts it up and we hold onto a block a little longer, it might’ve been a bigger play.”
(In what ways has WR Kenny Stills refined and polished his game since he got here, since you got here?) – “I didn’t have any experience with him before. When I was in Chicago, we talked about trading for him, because those guys all knew him from New Orleans. He reminded me a lot of the guys that (Mike) Martz always had – a faster guy that can run the deeper and intermediate routes downfield and blow by people. I hadn’t really had really fast guys like him. I think (Broncos WR) Emmanuel (Sanders) might have been the closest to him. When we came in, he just said, ‘Hey, I want to do whatever helps us win and I want to get better,’ and he said all of the right things. We kept working with him and he really took to the offense and tried to learn everything about the whole thing, every little detail. It’s paid off for him. Now he really helps other guys and you constantly see him working with the younger guys. I think that helps him too, because it makes him really think of the details of every little thing in the offense.”
(How has the right side of the line played, since G/T Jermon Bushrod went out with G/T Jesse Davis and T Sam Young?) – “They’ve been good. They’ve done a good job. I think it’s the closest, if you want to call it, chemistry since those guys have gotten to practice together and work together. We’ve had some good d-lines they’ve had to go against. That’s been key for us. Those guys are just working well together.”
(When you talked about getting off to a fast start in any game, and specifically against the Patriots, would it be worth taking the ball if you win the opening coin toss or is it still “No, we need it?”) – “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
(Can you discuss pros and cons of that?) – “Yes, sure. We can take the ball. I don’t know what’s going to happen. If they have the ball to start, we have to do whatever we can to stop them and if we have the ball to start, we’ve got to try to drive down the field and set up field position or score points, whatever it is.”
(In the words of Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke, he was talking about DE Cameron Malveaux and he said he was ‘destroying’ the offense. Is that particularly true or what did you see?) – “You’re talking about when he was on scout team?”
(Yes.) – “(laughter) I don’t want to use those words. That might get me in trouble. He was doing a really good job. He was making our guys better. I asked Cam (Wake) about it when he was in a role when he first came in the NFL and he told me, ‘Thursdays were my game day and I wasn’t going to slow down for anybody.’ He’s like, ‘That’s how I got better.’ I think (Malveaux) is the same way. Every day for him is (game day), whether it’s Wednesday or Thursday. He plays the run tough. He’s a big man. He comes off the edge well. He does everything we ask him to do. It was great to see him get an opportunity, especially right away, just jump up and get to play.”
(Is there anyone else besides DE Cameron Malveaux that you’ve seen on the practice squad, or even on the 53 like CB Torry McTyer, a young guy that we haven’t seen a lot that’s caught your eye in practices?) – “It’s hard for me to separate them all, because these guys work hard. This whole rookie class has done a great job coming in every day. They put their heads down, they work, they try to help, they try to do everything that they’re asked to do. I think even some of the veterans have appreciated the way that these guys have gone about their business. They’ve been part of the solution and no matter what’s happened, they don’t waver. Sometimes when you get some of the younger guys in here that haven’t gone through some of the experiences that other guys have gone through where they’ve been through some rough seasons. You get in a bad place in this league sometimes if you go through enough of them. These guys have just constantly tried to find ways to get better.”
(No TE Rob Gronkowski for New England on Monday Night. I asked Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke about it earlier, how does that impact the preparation?) – “Whoever they’ve got up, we’ll get ready for. He’s always going to be a big factor in a game when he plays and when he doesn’t, they find ways to move the ball. That’s why (Patriots Offensive Coordinator) Josh (McDaniels) is good. He finds ways to take the group he has, that’s available to him, and causes problems, finds the mismatch and puts guys in a good position.”
(Is it too early to tell on CB Cordrea Tankersley or do you have a gut instinct?) – “Yes, I don’t know. Day-to-day.”
(With T Eric Smith coming back practicing, is the vision to eventually see if he can contribute on the 53?) – “We’re going to see. We’re going to just keep working him. He did a lot of really good things that we liked. I love how engaged he’s been since he’s been hurt. He just constantly kept working and when you see a young guy that, mentally, is just trying to make sure he doesn’t lose any time, because that’s really the hard part for some of these young guys. It just starts moving so fast and you’re trying to keep your body right and keep up with what’s going on because as the season goes on, you start evolving into certain things and if you’re not practicing, it can get tough. He did a great job of staying up to speed and making sure that when he got a chance to jump back out there, he was ready to go.”
