Adam Gase – August 19, 2018
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Sunday, August 19, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(How do you think LB Raekwon McMillan has played through two games? Do you look at him as ‘he’s my middle linebacker through thick and thin this season?’) – “Right now he’s doing a good job of going through the progression that we need to go through as really a first-year player. I know it’s his second year, but we lost pretty much the entire season last year. We got a little bit of training camp and a little bit of the offseason; but he’s progressed well and I feel like he’s getting better. After watching this game, you saw some things where he cut it loose. He’s thinking less. That’s really the biggest thing. I know he wants to play well. He wants to do a lot of the things that you want a Mike linebacker to do. I think it’s trending in the right direction.”
(Can you talk about the thought process in bringing DL Kendall Langford back here? I know he was injured and you’ve had some issues with the DTs.) – “His name kept coming up since the spring. Will Hayes was getting on me pretty good about ‘just take a look at my guy, take a look at my guy.’ It just kind of worked out to where we brought him in and we brought a couple of other guys in and did a workout, and our guys felt like he looked like the best guy. They asked him to run a conditioning test and he crushed it. That was great to see because it’s hard to find guys that can come in here, especially at that spot, be in shape and then he plays 18 snaps. It’s been a while since he’s even thrown on pads. For him to come in there and not have any errors, and just minor technique things that we just do different that he hasn’t really done before, I thought it was a great sign for us. Having a guy that’s a veteran guy that basically everybody in this building respects, it’s good to have him here.”
(Are you comfortable with where the d-line is now? Do you anticipate adding more?) – “I like where our d-line is. We just have to make sure that we do a better job of fitting our runs right. I think the d-line is trying to do exactly what they’re coached to do. They’re attacking. I think our edge guys, getting Cam (Wake) back, that’s (important). Not having him the first game compared to the second game, we noticed right away. He dents the edge in the run game. It makes a big difference. We have a couple of young linebackers back there that we just have to make sure that we’re all on the same page.”
(What did the coaching staff notice after reviewing the second play by Carolina, the 71-yard run?) – “It was just kind of what I said after the game. Basically, we misfitted it. Bobby (McCain) had a chance to save the day. He got a little too aggressive. Sometimes, when you’re a secondary player, you want to be aggressive to really show ‘I’ll mix it up, I’ll get in there.’ Sometimes we need him to be just ‘hang there, do your job, and if that breaks through you just get him down and let us reload.’ I think we had two guys get too aggressive in that aspect in the secondary and we didn’t fit it right. We had a lot of guys do right on that play, but then all it takes is one guy to not do the right thing and it could be a chain reaction across the board.”
(The third down conversions in the preseason are not good. Why?) – “Just putting ourselves in a bad spot. Do you remember the down and distances that were on those third downs?”
(Bad.) – “Yes, third-and-13, third-and-25, third-and-14. It’s just unmanageable. It comes from second down, penalty, negative play. Those are where we really have to eliminate our issues. No negative plays on first and second down gives us a chance to say third-and-6 or less, which gives us a higher percentage of converting. We had an opportunity on third-and-6, we made a mistake, and it’s a critical one because it affects everybody else. That’s what we need to get cleaned up. We have to be on it as far as not making the mistakes that we can control. These are things that we’re hurting ourselves. Our guys understand this week, that that has to be our focus. If we want to be better on third down, we have to clean up first and second down, and then when we get third-and-manageable, we have to convert. Everybody needs to do the right thing.”
(What do you think the cause of those penalties are?) – “It’s something different every time. You get an OPI (offensive pass interference), you get a holding at one point where (Kenyan) Drake and Ryan (Tannehill) get their feet tangled up, plus we had a holding on second-and-15, which puts us third-and-12 eventually. It’s just something different every time. Your best chance to have manageable third downs is we have to execute. We have to do it right. ”
(Talk about your red zone offense, what are you seeing there?) – “It hasn’t been good. We have some things that we’re not doing in the preseason games right now that we’ve been working on in training camp. Sometimes when we try to throw things in there for a game specific to what the defense does and we haven’t repped it enough, it’s going to look like crap and it has. I’m alright taking the hit on that one considering that I know what we’re trying to do big picture.”
(Do you think your run defense is going to be better this year than last year?) – “Yes. I do.”
(Why?) – “Because I can see how it’s kind of starting to come together. We’ve got two young linebackers back there that, we’ll get those guys up to speed and they’ll be doing it right once we hit this thing that first week. We have athletic guys in that second level and we’ll get the fits right, because that’s going to be on us as coaches. We’ll give those guys an opportunity to make plays and they’ll make them.”
(How far do you think this team is away from where you want them to be?) – “I think it’s coming down to cleaning up the details. It’s like those little tiny things that big picture-wise, if you see something negative happen and you start going ‘why is that happening? Why did that happen?’ Then when you go back and start watching the film, you start correcting them, you really get encouraged because you’re going ‘we can fix this.’ I’m not sitting there like ‘how do we fix this’ where there’s frustration. We can see how to fix it. We need to go do it in practice and then we have to execute it correctly in a game. If we keep taking things from practice to a game, that’s going to give us our best shot to do it right in pressure situations. I think the guys that we have right now, I’m encouraged that we’re going to get that done.”
(How did TE Mike Gesicki do in this game?) – “He had his ups and downs. I’m always probably going to be a little hard on him because we’re putting him in a lot of positions to pass protect, run blocking, those type of things. We’ll get to the passing game when we need to get to the passing game.”
(When you have two guys battling for the same position either in the starting lineup or on the roster, how often do you throw out analytics and just go with gut feeling?) – “I think you use everything as a tool. Plus, there’s a lot of people involved. You have your position coach, your coordinators. We start talking to pro personnel guys, their vantage point – (Executive VP of Football Operations) Mike (Tannenbaum) and (General Manager) Chris (Grier). We have a lot of guys that we kind of have the discussion, and then we use the analytics when we need to do it. We’re doing a lot with certain aspects of the game, a certain emphasis that we’ve kind of made important in training camp that we’re using to help evaluate our guys. There’s probably a gut aspect that goes of ‘I think this is trending in the right direction. It might not be the most popular decision but this is what we’re going to go with.’ Since I’ve been here, I haven’t been a part of it too much where one guy says ‘we’re doing this,’ and nobody is on the same page. I feel like we’ve been pretty consensus for the most part since I’ve been here.”
(Obviously you like things to operate like clockwork and very well but in all of your years in the league, how much have you found both individually and as a team that preseason performance correlates to regular season performance?) – “I always have to remind myself of this because for me – I know (you guys) don’t ever think I ever get mad and I’m happy all of the time but during the game, I’m pissed. I want us to do well. I want us to score every drive. I want us to win the game. That’s just competitive nature and I think a lot of guys feel the same way. Sometimes you have to remind yourself that it’s the preseason. We didn’t execute this correctly and you have to remember that we’re all almost pressing a little bit because we know we only have this many drives and this many plays. Where in a real game, you can have a rough first half and when you come out in the second half, all of a sudden you can score 28 (points) or you can shut a team out. In a regular-season game, it’s so long of a game that things can change so quickly with one play. You don’t really have that aspect in the preseason because it’s a race against time. You’re just trying to get as much done as possible in a quick amount of time.”
(To piggyback on that, when you get questions like you’ve gotten in the last 15 minutes, do you somewhere in your head go ‘I haven’t prepared. I haven’t shown everything. This isn’t really us. It’ll change in the regular season.’ Or are you thinking ‘This is my team and we suck?’) – “I’m never going to think that way. I know you do, but I don’t. I see where we’re going with this. I see the big picture. Do we want to show red zone stuff? No. You want to be careful with what you show in that area. Third downs and some of the things that you might like to where a team sees it one time and you might never be able to do it again? You don’t want to show it right now. A lot of the stuff that you’re doing right now are the things that you’re working in training camp against your defense. Then you try to pair it up to what the other team that you’re playing is doing. So for Carolina, they’re similar to this, this and this with our defense, so we’ll do this because it’s kind of like our core. That’s really what everybody is doing in the preseason. This third one, you try to do a couple of things but you still don’t want to show the things that you want to do in the regular season. You want to practice it in training camp as much as possible. It probably screws up the quarterbacks more than anybody because it’s like, ‘Hey, we’re working on this. This week we’re going to throw these three things in here in the walkthrough. Make sure you get your timing down.’ It can kind of jack you up a little bit. I don’t know if it had so much to do. I don’t think we were as aggressive as I’d want to be in a regular-season game in the red area.”
(I know RB Jeremy Langford has a lot of bodies in front of him but you had him in Chicago and you liked him. He had a good rookie year. He had a couple of nice runs the other night. What do you like about this kid and does he have a shot?) – “Yes. I always feel like his thing was he got injured. It kind of threw everything off. Last year we brought him in and talked to him about coming here and he chose not to. He wasn’t really healthy. He was trying to catch on though and get with somebody. I think he was looking for it to carry into the offseason and training camp. For us to get him back here and kind of get him going to where he can play in some games … I was encouraged the other night. I know he’s trying to get caught up with the terminology because some things have changed from the last time I was with him. He’s been in a couple of different systems. He’s starting to be able to play fast. I knew last night, or the other night, when we put him in, there were a few routes that I wanted to throw with him to just get him out and see if we can get him the ball and see if we can get him into the open field. I thought he probably made one of our better tackles on the interception. He did a good job. He stuck that guy pretty good. He had a good reception to where he made a bunch of guys miss. It’s good to see him kind of get going. I think once he’s really wired in terminology-wise, I think it’ll be easier. I think this week will be a better opportunity for him, as well.”
(Do you need to see RB Frank Gore on Saturday?) – “Do I need to see him? I don’t. But he’s driving me insane right now. (laughter)”
(Do you expect RB Frank Gore to play then?) – “I mean we’ll see how the week goes. If I say no right now then he’ll be in my office in five minutes. I know that he wants to go out there and do something. I think he’s tired of staying on the sidelines.”
(Among guys who are close, is there anyone that you expect back to work this week amongst WR Kenny Stills, DE William Hayes, C Jake Brendel, etc.?) – “Stills I think has a really good chance of actually practicing right away on the first day. We just have to see … Today he was going to run around and really juice it up. I know he is saying he feels right but you know how that works. I think we’re all a few credits short. I think with Tony (Lippett), we should be good to go. Really, our biggest thing with Tony was he had four reps last week. That was on me. I didn’t want to throw him in a game and he just hadn’t seen those guys. He hadn’t been competing like the way that we were going to compete on Friday.”
(With CB Cordrea Tankersley, have the coaches put any rhyme or reason to why he hasn’t taken that next step?) – “I think it’s tough to really say it’s this one thing. I think at that position, there’s just so much consistency involved in it. If you have a guy that even when they get beat, they come back the next play and they keep fighting … I think it’s just that we’ve had some ups and downs. I think we just need to find a way to level him out and get him to just play it one play at a time and compete. Get your hands up. His length and his ability to run, those are his strengths. When we see him press, we want him to put hands on the receiver and jar that guy at the line of scrimmage. I think that’s the No. 1 thing. If he does that consistently, I think that’s where he really has an advantage over guys because even if he misses, he has that speed that he can catch up to that guy. He’s long and he can get his hands on balls. Really, I think he just needs to use his strengths and apply them as much as possible. I think sometimes he just gets away from it sometimes and it’s hard to explain sometimes. When you’re a tall corner that’s long and fast, use your skills.”
(I wanted to ask you about WR Jakeem Grant in terms of how defenses play him. Is that what you expect is for everybody to give him a 7-yard cushion?) – “Would you? I’m not going to ask you. You aren’t winning a race versus anybody. (laughter) Yes. The way he can release off the ball, he’s hard to get hands on. He can make guys miss very quickly if you press him. That means he’s going to get by you. Now the safety might have to get involved, so you’re taking the safety out of the middle of the field and the other side is going to become available. The easier way is ‘Just keep him in front and let’s just go tackle him.’ Him being a guy that can do punt return and kick return, now he has an opportunity to make guys miss in space. You can see guys being a little careful of how they play him. Plus he doesn’t have a ton of film out there to where guys are trying to feel him out in a game. That’s when it can get tough.”
