Adam Gase – August 22, 2018
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Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Do you love to pass more than run?) – “I’m all for whatever wins the game.”
(Seriously.) – “I’m all for whatever wins the game.”
(What are your other likes and dislikes?) – “Am I going on a date? (laughter)”
(Since you have moved S Minkah Fitzpatrick to the slot, what changes have you noticed in him? Just from the outside, to me it appears that he’s a very physical player. Can you talk about that aspect of him also?) – “It’s hard to find safeties that can move into that spot and be able to do it on third down. You see a lot of teams really kind of go with a three-safety look but that guy is playing the nickel position. It happens a lot of times on first and second down, and the reason people do that is when teams are trying to run the ball, it’s having a more physical player, it’s having a bigger player, it’s having a guy that’s willing to mix it up in the run game. A lot of times you see, historically, the guys that play nickel are smaller players, so just by size they’re not as physical. That’s really – a lot of those guys – their deficiency is they’re smaller in stature. He has the rare ability to be able to stay on the field on third down. He has the quickness and the physicality at the line of scrimmage, and it helps him be able to play that spot on all three downs.”
(Does S Minkah Fitzpatrick play say WR Danny Amendola than CB Bobby McCain would have?) – “It’s just they have different styles. Bobby probably can’t be as aggressive at the line because Minkah is taller and longer, so he has a little bit of room for error. He can get his hands on him, where Bobby can get his hands on him sometimes but he changes it up a lot. He tries to make him keep guessing. The body types are just different.”
(How does S Minkah Fitzpatrick’s acclimation compared to a typical rookie?) – “I think it’s rare. I just go back to when we drafted him. (Kenyan) Drake texted me and goes, ‘you have a guy that’s a pro before he’s a pro.’ When he came in as a freshman, we all thought he was different because of the way he acted, the way he carried himself, the way he studied, the way he learned things. We always just thought he was so much older than what he was. I think it’s been the same thing here. He’s up here late and he’s here early. He’s always doing something and it’s all football.”
(When it comes to RB Frank Gore, when he’s not in there, I see him watching. If he’s not watching then he’s on the sideline doing pushups. He’s had a Hall of Fame career. Do you feel he has something to prove?) – “I don’t know if Frank’s ever gone into a season thinking he doesn’t have anything to prove. I think in the back of his mind, he’s always trying to prove, probably to himself more than anybody, that ‘I’m going to have another great season.’ I think he just does a great job of resetting every year. I think he just looks where everything as one year at a time. When we were together 10 years ago, I never heard him talk down the road or what happened before. He’s always in the moment. He’s a special guy. For what he’s done and the things he’s been through, it’s hard to find guys like that.”
(Based on what RB Frank Gore has gone through, his injuries, some things in his personal life, are you surprised that he’s still at this point where he’s at?) – “No, because I learned a long time ago you never doubt him because he’s going to end up finding a way to do exactly what he wants to do and play this game. He loves playing this game. That’s why he’s infectious to the other guys, because when you have an older guy – he loves practicing. H loves going out early and doing his cone work. All of the little tiny things that happen before a game, he loves to do. You want your younger guys to watch him and follow what he does.”
(Does anybody have a slower walk than RB Frank Gore?) – “(Kenyan) Drake. He’s always last. (laughter)”
(With TE Mike Gesicki, when you add him to the red zone mix, obviously you’re not trying to show things during the exhibition games, but how does that change things for you as a play caller?) – “I think it makes teams really decide what they want to do. Do they want to man it up and see if he’s as good as sometimes we’ve talked about? Do they want to play zone and give us a chance to run the ball and try to stop the run with a light box? Are they going to do something different where maybe they just max pressure us and try to get the ball out quick? I think it just helps us as far as it can open up other guys. It can open the running game up. It just gives us options. Really, it kind of goes on the defense of how they are going to play us, and then we kind of have to react to that.”
(TE Mike Gesicki mentioned today that the fade route with QB Ryan Tannehill was a sign of trust, that Ryan is comfortable enough with him to throw that route. What did it mean to you to see that?) – “Any time that we can give him opportunities just in practice, for those guys to hook up when it’s legit competition, that’s only going to make us better. We can throw as many routes on air as possible and the timing looks good, but when you get in that competitive periods, that’s where you want to see it. You want to see the ball go up, the trust to be there, it be put in the right spot and then at the end of the day, if there’s some kind of error, he makes a play where, maybe it’s an incompletion, but he grabs the ball on top of the guy’s head. I thought that was just a really good hook up. It was a great play and it was a great catch by him. It’s good to see that progression going on between those two guys.”
(I know you said you were keeping things pretty vanilla at this point. I know today, we noticed a lot of stuff in practice – none of it will be written about – but here’s my question. How much different should you guys look when you take the field on Saturday from big-play standpoint or comfort?) – “It’s going to be how they play us. I know everybody wants me to just chuck the ball down the field, but when the corners are bailing and they’re already 10 yards off, you’re just looking for foul balls and you’re just not going to get any completions. To me, it always comes down to who are we playing, what’s their defense, how are we going to attack it, sticking to our plan, not worrying about what anybody else thinks that doesn’t know what they’re talking about. If they come up and play cover 1, we’ll have some shots to push the ball down the field. If they play off, and we have to take things underneath, then we have to do a good job of going 12 plays and scoring through the goal line.”
(I’m talking about both sides of the ball, I’m not just talking about offense. But should players be more familiar with what you’re going to do Saturday, more comfortable?) – “I think so. I mean we’ve got through a real game week. I feel like the way that we’ve been doing our meetings and the practice … We made some changes. Every year we’ve done something a little bit different just to see how our players react to it. I feel like guys do get a little more comfortable in this week’s preparation because you’re not going into a game with, ‘Hey, anything could come up.’ You go in there with a game plan but it changes so much because you’re not sitting there studying for a full week on what the other team is doing. And this week, we’ve treated it like a real game, probably like they are. They’re more prepared with the exacts of the game, how they play and how we’re going to play, how we’re going to attack certain things. It helps our guys, I guess, play faster and just go out there and worry about executing our plays.”
(I know it’s only the preseason, but as far as a measure of your team, for you, Baltimore has been a team that maybe is a team that you want to be like more and the last couple of years …) –“Yes, we’ve struggled against them the last couple of years, for whatever reason. It’s hard for me to say this is exactly the one reason that’s happened. You always go into this game … Every team in the league would really like to play well in the third preseason game. Well, there’s a lot of teams saying that and you know half of them are going to be angry and half of them are going to be like, ‘Alright, I feel good going into the season.’ I just never feel like you can be too high, be too low. You have to understand, what are our strengths and what are our weaknesses? And try to get better at your weaknesses and try to put together good drives. That’s what we need to do. That’s the No. 1 thing for us on offense and the defense, it’s the same thing. We have goals for this week and we want to try to get better from last week. That’s what we’re working on.”
(What are some things that you see that we don’t that are encouraging, that tell you you’re trending the right way?) – “I like where our pass protection is on offense. We’ve played a lot of guys at wide receiver, especially with Ryan (Tannehill), which has been great. I know it’s been unfortunate that we haven’t had DeVante for a little bit here and Kenny missed a week; but it was good because Albert (Wilson) and Jakeem (Grant), they were getting every rep with him. We were trying to figure out a way to plan that during training camp. Well, it just kind of happened. I just think the chemistry of that group is getting strong, which is great to see the fact that Ryan is not on the ground. He’s not getting drilled like we’ve seen in the past. And then on defense, it’s just kind of getting the guys that we think are going to be out there in that first group to keep working together so we can develop chemistry. I think that’s coming along. I’ve seen some good things in practice. If we eliminate the big runs, we’re going to be feeling different about our defense every week. It’s one of those things that’s easy to say but it takes 11 guys to do the right thing.”
(With WR DeVante Parker out, it’s a short wide receiver corps. Do you think there could be an advantage there?) – “I never … When you’ve got guys that are as quick as these guys, you’ll be alright. That’s not a factor for me. I look at it as things are probably going to happen a little quicker. I know Ryan’s got to lower his target line every once in a while when ‘19’ (Jakeem Grant) is running a route, but that’s about it.”
(With a guy like RB Buddy Howell, how much of a benefit was it for him to have played in a Lane Kiffin offense?) – “I mean, anytime you can be … Lane has so much. He does it all. You’ve got pro-style things, you’ve got run-pass options. I mean, you’ve got everything. So he’s been exposed to a lot of stuff. I think anytime that you come into the NFL and you’ve been exposed to a certain offense that it’s such a wide range of things, that only can benefit you at this level because you never know what you’re going into. Every team is different in what they do. When you can process the information — especially where he’s at right now, he’s not getting a ton of reps right now; but all of a sudden he’s got to play 25-30 snaps in a game. Being able to process that and then go out and execute it by just watching, that’s not an easy thing to do. He’s done a good job of that.”
(What do you hope to see from the cornerbacks — not Xavien Howard or Bobby McCain, but Tony Lippett, Cordrea Tankersley, Torry McTyer — in these final two games that can sort of alleviate some concern?) – “I keep just looking at using our hands. When we get up and press, let’s put hands on those wide receivers and do a good job of disrupting them so it’s just not a nice, easy free release route for them. To me, I look at it like this, when you disrupt a guy when you’re in press and you disrupt that receiver, you’re helping your d-line have a chance to get home. That makes your job easier. I’m always going to be looking for that to see who wants to play the most physical at the line of scrimmage. Then, the guys that end up getting beat on a route, how do they come back? Because it’s going to happen. In this league, I don’t know many corners that have gone their entire career without having a ball caught on them. So how do you respond? Are you able to forget about it and move on the next play and then try to win that snap?”
