Adam Gase – July 26, 2018
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Thursday, July 26, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Quick first impressions from the first day of practice?) – “It’s the first day. It was good to go through one of the hotter days I think that I’ve experienced in the last two years. It was good to have it on the first day. Everything else after this, I’ll probably be happy if there is any kind of breeze, so maybe we’ve gotten lucky for the last two years.”
(QB Ryan Tannehill has this 2.0 knee brace. In what ways will this model of him be perhaps as good as ever?) – “I think just experience, whether it be in our offense or just in general, playing quarterback in the NFL. Every rep he gets, he takes something from it. He’s constantly learning. I think the receivers and the tight ends and the running backs and him – they’ve developed good chemistry through the spring and what they’ve done over the summer. I don’t know if the knee brace is something … It’s not really something that I’m even thinking about. Eventually, he’ll probably have to start working on sliding a different way than he used to.”
(You know quarterbacks obviously well, and the life of the QB and the pressure that comes with it. Do you think that it’s fair that a lot of that falls on QB Ryan Tannehill and he’s coming back and all of this expectation that he’s just going to pick up where he left off and be the man?) – “I mean that’s what they get paid to do. He knows the job description and he understands the expectations and the amount of pressure that goes at that position. I don’t think that’s something that he loses a lot of sleep over.”
(Do you think that every training camp has its own kind of feel and vibe or is training camp just training camp?) – “It does. Every year it has felt a little different. Some of it might, maybe myself, this being the third one here … (It’s a) different feel when you’re a coordinator or a position coach. A lot of times, the attitude of the players can dictate how that feel is as well. It’s been real exciting to be around this group. The way these guys attack things, it makes it fun to be out on the practice field, and when guys make mistakes, they work to get better.”
(How much should we look into who is working with the starters on Day 1?) – “I would take your time on that. Right now, that’s kind of where we ended up in the spring. Eventually, at all of the positions, we’re going to try to move some things around and get some different groups in there, and try to get guys to have experience with Ryan (Tannehill). We have to find some ways to do that because you never know what is going to happen. If somebody goes down, they have to be ready to go. You don’t want that to be the first time that they’ve actually had a rep with him. We’re going to eventually get to that point. This first week or so, we’re going to try to get in a good rhythm and then we’ll experiment after that.”
(And defensively?) – “It’s the same thing. We’re really just trying to get guys back into the flow of everything. Then we’ll start shuffling things around. We’re not going to start moving things around too early. We want guys to put some things on tape, kind of see where we’re at, what adjustments we need to make and then we’ll make them.”
(When an older player like WR Danny Amendola comes in, and you’ve had others in the past couple of years, what are you looking for to tell whether or not, basically, they still have it?) – “Really, that was our job in the offseason. In the spring, you know where a guy really is in his career. Right now, Danny looks like the same guy that we played against. For us, any of our older players, they don’t look any different than what we thought we were getting when we brought them here. I think Frank (Gore) is the one guy that every time I watch him, you just shake your head when you see him make some of these cuts and the acceleration through the hole. The guy is ageless.”
(You’re the coach so you see 30,000 things that we don’t see; but does the success and failure of the team this year depend basically on QB Ryan Tannehill?) – “I don’t think it’s at that capacity. I think we have a lot of good pieces around him that can help us get to where we’re trying to get as far as improving every week. With him not being in there, there’s a drop off obviously, because he’s a starter in the NFL, and him being out there is better for us than him not being out there.”
(Can you win if QB Ryan Tannehill doesn’t play well?) – “Yes.”
(Were there any guys back in February and March that you challenged to reshape their body and to get in better shape where you’ve seen results?) – “No. Nobody wants to test the elements here. Whether you’re new or you’ve been here for a while, you understand what you’re coming into in training camp. Guys came back and they were in great shape when we had OTAs. Now you add five weeks with (Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Dave) Puloka before that, so that helps. They had five weeks off, now all of a sudden you have to show up yesterday. The guys, they don’t take that chance.”
(How would you describe the situation you have right now at cornerback opposite CB Xavien Howard. What’s happening there?) – “I think those guys are just battling. It’s good to see that Tony (Lippett) looks like he’s trending towards where he was when he was healthy in 2016. We saw flashes of it in the spring, and I think there was a little bit where he was holding back, trying to work through some of the soreness and pain sometimes. He looked good today I thought. It was good to see him transition and make some plays on the ball.”
(What were your thoughts last week when, for a few hours, you guys were a top national conversation when it came to the national anthem?) – “That’s the good thing about me not watching TV and scrolling through the Internet. I just kind of wait and see what we’re told by the NFL and the NFLPA and what’s going on, as far as their conversations go. I wait until we actually start games. It seems like things change a lot.”
(Would you ever consider suspending a player for taking a knee?) – “I mean if anyone knew the actual rules of the NFL, good luck suspending somebody, because it takes about 5,000 things before anybody can get suspended by a club.”
(Do you think the issue is potentially divisive for a team?) – “I don’t know. You’d have to poll 31 other teams. I don’t know.”
(Do you think it is potentially divisive for this team?) – “I think our guys do a good job of communicating with each other. I think they do a good job of when issues come up, they get together, they hammer it out (and) they talk to each other. These guys aren’t shy about speaking up. They’ve done a good job of making sure, as a group, they talk through things. Not just that, there’s … Other issues always come up during a season. I thought last year, we weren’t as good at doing it as we were the year before, as far as guys talking to each other and kind of seeking each other out. I think this group right now, it’s a different group. These guys aren’t shy. They won’t shy away from things. I like that they are able to do that and have open conversations.”
(So you believe that it’s unrealistic that any player would actually be suspended for this?) – “I don’t know. I’m just telling you that other instances that have happened in the past, it’s harder to suspend guys than what anybody realizes.”
(This issue arose in your first year, I believe, as a head coach. Has this been a difficult challenge for you? This wouldn’t have been something you would have expected at the time, when you took the job.) – “It hasn’t been a challenge for me. I just go with whatever is being said by people in charge and then at the same time, I’m communicating with our players and giving them information that I get, and go from there.”
(Do pads go on Sunday or Monday and when they do go on, how quickly can you start forming concrete opinions about things that you haven’t seen with pads?) – “What is today, Thursday? Friday, Saturday … Saturday we’ll have the uppers on, and we’ll go full pads I think on Sunday or Monday.”
(How quickly can you gain things, knowledge-wise, once they’re in pads?) – “It picks up pretty good. You’ll figure out who’s going to want to be a little more aggressive. Some guys want to be aggressive and some guys shy away from contact; but for the most part, unless you’re a rookie, we’ve seen most of these guys in pads. We know how they’re going to react to that. The rookies, you just want to see if what you saw in college and on tape is going to carry over.”
(You guys are pretty healthy right now, right? Nobody on the PUP list and I don’t think anybody was sitting out. Is that just luck or is that a testament to your people and the work the players are doing?) – “I think a lot of it has to do with our players using the resources they have. We have a lot of people that are always trying to help those guys, making sure that they stay healthy. Our players are being very proactive, especially at the positions where you’re doing a lot of running and can possibly have (muscle) pulls and things like that. They’re being proactive. They’re making sure to use all of the resources they have in our building, and hopefully we just keep on the same trend.”
(Is this a first or has this happened before for you where no guys were on PUP? Do you remember?) – “I don’t know. I’ll check if you want me to.”
(With this heat wave, it seems to be a little bit on the accelerated level that what I’m used to. Do you have to have more precaution about heat exhaustion and hydration?) – “The hydration part, our guys do a good job of. You can tell players get annoyed sometimes because they’re always (reminded) the day before about hydrating, being consistent in what we’re doing. During practice, we’re monitoring everyone. We’re checking to make sure where we’re at with the heat. We kind of got levels to say ‘We’re in this area, we might need to take a break. Let’s get everybody out of the sun and then go back.’ So, we’re always checking on that to make sure if it gets to a level where we’re worried about something, that’s when you’ll see us actually take a break, get guys in the shade and get them in the cooler area so we make sure nothing ever happens to anybody.”
(There isn’t a coach or player in the league today who is saying they are going to stink and be a bad time. What sense do you have of your team as you look forward to the expectations of this year?) – “I think our guys just understand that when you enter a season, it’s 0-0. That’s the beauty about the NFL. It’s like saying, ‘Hey, you haven’t done this in 15 years.’ Nobody really cares. It’s a new start. That’s the beauty of this league. When you have guys moving out, you never know what that team, what personality they’re going to take, what their characteristics are going to be, how they are going to handle adversity and then that’s when you have those teams where nobody thinks they were going to do anything and all of a sudden you’re talking about them in January.”
