Clyde Christensen – December 21, 2017
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Thursday, December 21, 2017
Offensive Coordinator Clyde Christensen
(It’s clear, obviously, going forward that T Laremy Tunsil is going to be your left tackle. That being said, after watching him at both positions, do you think he’s a better guard than a tackle?) – “No, I think he’s a left tackle. I really do. The unfortunate thing for him, just because of circumstances, is that he has had back-to-back rookie years. They’re two different positions. (He has) spent a ton of time trying to get acclimated to a position he had never played at left guard last year and then now after a year off, he comes in and plays arguably the toughest position other than quarterback on the offense in this league. I think it has been more that you’ve got a guy who has had back-to-back rookie years, which takes a toll on you mentally, physically, learning-wise, everything; but I do think that’s his position and that he can really excel at it going forward.”
(Do you think T Laremy Tunsil has been better run blocking or pass blocking this year?) – “I think he’s really been good run blocking. He has done both adequately, but I think his run blocking – especially last week – was really good. His pad level was down and he did a nice job.”
(Just one other thing on T Larmey Tunsil: How angry does the staff get with him on penalties? He’s obviously into double digits.) – “I think there’s probably a frustration level probably led by him. You can’t (do that). It has been a point of emphasis. We’ve cut them down a little bit, but I know he’s disappointed in it and it’s frustrating for everybody, because now all of a sudden there are those third-and-longs that you’re talking about.”
(With TE Julius Thomas out, the receiving ability of the tight end position, how does that look right now?) – “We’re kind of treating it as one-for-one. A.J. (Derby) can run; he can run and catch. Julius will be hard to replace in a lot of ways, because he did both okay. He certainly excelled in the pass game, but he had really bought into the run-blocking stuff; and just experience, he was kind of a guy who was heating up a little bit if you will. Now you go back to a guy who really hasn’t played for us. I think there’s going to be a tradeoff there; but as far as running and catching and having some things that he can do, (Derby) has been impressive. I haven’t seen him in pads. I haven’t ever seen him in pads, so some of it is speculation.”
(When you’re talking about speculation, you’ve watched TE A.J. Derby basically going against your first team defense on the scout team?) – “Yes, sure, for a couple weeks; but A) for a short time and B) you’re not in pads ever. It’s just different. It’s hard to measure a football player when you don’t see them in pads. A lot of guys, it’s like the Combine. It has some value, but it’s nothing like … You have to see football players in pads, when the fur is flying and etc. And we haven’t seen that apart from just a few snaps.”
(With TE MarQueis Gray, is his role going to change at all, or is he still going to be in that H-back role?) – “I think it’ll stay the same. I think the plan is for it to stay the same. His reps could slightly go up; but his role will stay the same. Does that make sense? To think the (Derby) is going to be able to go as many snaps as Julius (Thomas) went, (he) probably can’t. MarQueis (Gray) will pick up some of those plus he has already got a pretty big role in what we ask him to do.”
(How would you evaluate RB Kenyan Drake’s progress?) – “I think it has been good. It’s progress. He just continues to grow. I had a funny conversation with him yesterday; but he is, he’s maturing. From a year ago until now, it’s night and day. I think one of the good measuring sticks for us on players is what you look like in December. Those are big games. We talked about it this week that a playoff team, a playoff-caliber performance showed up … It was us in the New England game. It was Buffalo that did it to us up there. We didn’t get it done and they did in all of the things that are key. But Kenyan has been consistent in December. He has played winning football both games in December, which is really good. It’s two good teams. It’s some pressure. It’s all the things I always talk to you guys about: it’s a sore body, it’s mental – mentally it’s the 15th week of the season – it’s all of those things. So, he held up. I always kind of measure it by ball protection and quarterback protection and he has been pretty darn clean for two weeks on those things. I was kind of teasing him, it’s not that painful to kind of be mature, and he said, ‘No, it really isn’t;’ but he hasn’t quite arrived yet. He has bought in. I think he’s having fun with the role. I think he’s having fun seeing himself as kind of a key guy in this thing and not just the guy coming out of the bullpen as I mentioned to you last week, who knows he has to somehow find a way to play 10 good snaps well. This is a different thing, and it’ll get harder as we mentioned to him. You remember last year, Jay (Ajayi) had the two 200-yard games and then all of a sudden, people are tattooing you. You get a mark on you and they’re after you. It gets harder and harder to just keep repeating it. This league doesn’t let you just roll on through. They do things and this is a great defense and they’ll do a good job and he’ll have to do it again; but we have to learn how to win a … One thing in the AFC is you have to learn how to win big games. Things go through the Northeast and Pittsburgh and Kansas City. These are great venues you have to be able to go in and play in December and win and then again do it in playoffs and beyond the season. That’s something we have to do. We didn’t get it done last week. It was really disappointing how we played last week.”
(You mentioned RB Kenyan Drake’s workload. I think he has had over a 20 carry average the last three weeks. That’s over 300 for a season. Is that something you could see in 2018?) – “You would hope not. His has been unique, because Damien (Williams) went down kind of simultaneously. We probably run him more than we wanted to. It’s not excessive. It’s not in the 30s or something, so you could do that. The more you give it to him, the more chance you have of a big play. A lot of it will be how does his body hold up? How does he hold up? Ideally, you get Damien back healthy and are able to split those reps a little bit more and keep people fresh.”
(The last interception of the last game, when you guys still had a chance, the very last one. Forgive me if there was an explanation – I haven’t heard it yet – I don’t know if it was a route issue or just a poor throw. What do you know happened?) – “I think what (Head) Coach (Adam) Gase said, which would be accurate, was that we did not want to take a sack and (Jay Cutler) probably threw it a little bit early. I think in his mind he was throwing it away. I don’t want to speak for him or Coach Gase, but I thought I saw a statement by Coach Gase just that it was first down, if he didn’t feel good about the look initially, get the ball out of his hand quick and it got picked.”
(What have you thought of QB Ryan Tannehill when you’ve seen him working out lately?) – “In Buffalo, I saw him jumping around and made a comment. He was jumping around. I think he was just trying to stay warm, but it did look good to see him bouncing off those knees, jumping and running. I watched him a little bit out of the window, here and there, doing some workouts. I haven’t seen a ton of it; but his feedback is that he really feels good and that he’s on pace and on the timeline that he needs to be on. That’s really encouraging. That’s great for him. I’m happy for him. I did make a note, because he was bouncing around there in pregame and stuff. I do remember noticing that and saying the thing looks pretty darn strong.”
(From a pass protection perspective, you mentioned RB Kenyan Drake in that area, and it’s been good. How has he been as far as knowing his assignment and how has that helped him in terms of being able to beat defenders?) – “His comfortability, if that’s a word, his comfort level with protections, is going up and up. His focus on protections has gone up and up. I’ll say one thing about him that he’s always had, he has a lot of pride. He has a physical pride. He doesn’t back down from people. He’s never been afraid to hit. We all saw him chip a couple of folks in the midseason there that were violent. They were violent. I’ve always admired that he has a physicality to him and a pride to him that he takes pride in it. I think the knowledge has helped and just doing it over and over, and I think the focus of just knowing, ‘Hey, I better learn all of them. I’m going to be in a lot of different situations.’ Then he had a couple of slip ups that I think were embarrassing to him where he said, ‘Hey, I’m going to commit myself to making sure that doesn’t happen.’ That’s like the fumble he had early. He has a personal pride about him that I like, where he fixes things. He was embarrassed that he laid one on the ground and he’s been better since. He’s practiced better since. I think the same with protection. He had a couple of screw ups early and I think he was embarrassed and fixed it. He takes pride in it and works at it. You always see him asking questions and you always see him watching the film where the board’s out there and making sure that he’s on it. I think all of the above, the arrow is pointing up. More knowledge, more commitment to it, more experience doing it, all of those things are better.”
(I assume you’ve seen the controversial play at the end of the New England-Pittsburgh game, the touchdown that wasn’t a touchdown…) – “I actually have not. I heard them talking about it, but I haven’t…”
(Well I was going to ask you, what do you tell your guys about securing the ball and taking it out of the officials’ hands as to whether it’s a catch or not a catch? How do you define a catch?) – “That’s hard. I have not seen (the play from the Pittsburgh game), I just heard the talk about it. The hard ones are those ones at the goal line where you’re so close. ‘Do I reach it out?’ We try to discourage (that). It just kind of comes natural to take the thing and reach it out; but especially in traffic, it’s extremely risky. That’s a hard teach, but it is a teach that we say, ‘Hey, in traffic, don’t reach the ball out.’ Just try to get it in there and if not, we’ll get it in the next play. There’s some catastrophes that can happen from that thing. The definition of a catch, we just talk hard – especially down there in the red zone – of just getting the ball into my body as quickly as I can get it in there. The rest is up to the official. We make a lot of one-handed catches and those things, so I don’t know that it’s a teach as much as it’s an experience. You do have to be careful with the ball. Get it into my body and get it secured, especially when you’re down in there, because you have points. You have points on the board already. You have 3 (points) and you don’t want to put those at risk by taking unnecessary chances. Did that answer your question?”
(Well in the case of the Pittsburgh game, it was a thing where the receiver was going to the ground and does the ground cause the ball to move and that sort of thing, especially after the ball passes the goal line’ but there was only one defender around him. Now when you say in traffic, don’t do something like that, are you telling players if you have more than one defender around you or is one defender enough to not reach the ball out?) – “It’s really one defender is enough not to do it. Again, let me say, I didn’t see that play. I really don’t have a mental picture of what it is. When I say traffic, all of the time you see a quarterback jump from the 1-yard line and stick the ball out. That’s extremely risky. Just traffic would be any time where you’re not 100 percent sure you can get it across without it getting knocked out, and that could be one guy. We’re better off keeping it secured and going from there. You can’t take chances with the football, especially down in there tight.”
(The role that QB Ryan Tannehill has had in game planning this year, has there been any with you and Head Coach Adam Gase and has it been different, at all, from his role as a starter last year?) – “Yes, sure, it’s been different; but there has been a role. I’ve been really impressed with him that he’s in all of the meetings. A lot of guys disappear. You go on IR and you just kind of disappear. It’s hard. IR is hard, because you don’t feel part of the team and you’re doing your treatment and you really aren’t (around). But I see him in there. He has his notebook, he takes notes, he has comments. You can tell he’s studying and he’s engaged. I think that’s an impressive characteristic to have. Not many guys can do that. It’s hard to focus – when you are going to play – in Week 15 of the thing. Week 15 of IR, to stay attentive, to stay engaged, to not just say, ‘Hey, I don’t need to be at the short yardage/goal line meeting this morning, I’ll just get some extra treatment or I’ll get my Christmas shopping done or something,’ is really hard to do. I don’t think that would surprise any of you that he has been an extremely conscientious guy; but I’ve been impressed with him. Every meeting when you come in to watch the practice tape, he’s right there in the front row and he’s trying to help the young guys out, which I think would be one of the things he’s done a good job of, of helping the young guys out. We’ve had new quarterbacks in here, he’s helped them out. I know he goes up and visits with Coach Gase like he always does and they kick around things there. I think he’s stayed extremely involved and it’s a hard role. That’s really a hard role, because it’s just an uncomfortable position, plus you have another guy, who you’re helping and hoping is taking over the leadership of the team and the huddle, whether it’s Matt (Moore) or (Jay) Cutler. You’re not sure what your role is. Are you still in charge of the whole thing or are you trying to be in the background? He’s handled it well and it’s really, really not easy. I’ve watched it. The quarterback position, especially; but a lot of guys – there’s a ton of guys – who disappear when it’s all over and you just don’t see them. They do their rehab and they do what they’re supposed to do, but it’s hard to stay engaged.”
