Adam Gase – August 7, 2017
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Monday, August 7, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase
(For clarity, is QB Jay Cutler competing with QB Matt Moore during the preseason to be the starter? Or is he going to be the starter going into the season?) – “You’ll know when I release the depth chart. I’m not going to make that announcement right now. He didn’t come out of retirement to stand on the sideline, but we’ve got a ways to go. We’ll get him in here, do a physical and kind of see where he’s at.”
(How confident are you that he’s the same QB Jay Cutler you had two years ago?) – “After watching last year, I saw basically the same stuff and then he got injured and they decided to move on from him. Then he stepped away for a minute. I feel good with where he was at the last couple years. I feel good about how he kind of fits in with us.”
(Can you explain how this all came together? Obviously you talked about it Saturday morning. Things developed pretty quickly after that?) – “Yes. I gave him a call and asked him if he was interested. He said yes and we worked on a contract. That’s it.”
(There wasn’t any convincing involved? QB Jay Cutler was pretty on board?) – “Nope. That was it.”
(Why did it work so well between you and QB Jay Cutler in 2015?) – “I mean he’s a good player. He did a good job of … We changed the offense. A new staff came in. He just did his job every week, every day. He did a good job of protecting the ball and the rest of those guys around him did a good job of making plays when we needed to. We had a lot of close games. Some went our way and some didn’t. Overall, the season was tough because our record didn’t quite reflect how tight a lot of those games were. It felt like if a couple of balls bounced our way that year, it would have been a different story for the season.”
(Can you explain what about QB Jay Cutler’s skill set makes him a good fit for the offense?) – “He can make every throw you want. (He has) good movement skills, good pocket presence, knows how to adjust to offenses and has been in quite a few. He fits in well with what we do without us really changing much. He has a really good grasp of our scheme. It’s a good fit for us.”
(Given QB Jay Cutler’s knowledge of the scheme. What will his learning curve here be like, do you think?) – “I’m pretty sure he’s already got it, so he’s good.”
(How much comfort level do you have in terms of when is the last time he’s thrown a football and what kind of shape he’s been in?) – “Really, it’s going to be more about the repetitions of how many times he actually throws in a day. We’re going to have to be smart with that because I’m sure he wasn’t out in the back yard throwing 100 balls a day. We’ve just got to make sure we don’t go too much too early. We’ve kind of got a good plan in place with (Head Strength & Conditioning Coach Dave) Puloka and (Sports Performance Director) Wayne (Diesel) and (Head Athletic Trainer) Ryan Grove. Those guys, we talked about exactly how we want to progress through this. We’ve got a good plan and we’ll just see how long it kind of takes us to get him ready.”
(You also have a locker room that is pretty loyal and committed to QB Matt Moore. How do you sort of ease that un-discomfort?) – “I talked to them. Our guys know. I was very up front with everything. They understand the reasoning why and what I was thinking and what I was feeling was the right thing for us. Our guys know that we have one goal in mind and that’s to win, and we felt like this gave us a good opportunity to have two really good quarterbacks on our team. We felt like we had two good quarterbacks when Ryan (Tannehill) was healthy. That’s really what we wanted to make sure (of). We wanted to make sure if something happened, we weren’t going to have a fall off. I think our guys understand that. I feel like we have a lot of guys that have worked extremely hard and when Ryan went down, that was a blow to all of us. I want to make sure that we put ourselves in the best position possible at the quarterback position to where our guys feel like they have a chance to win.”
(QB Matt Moore is one of the most professional and classy guys we know. How did he handle all of this?) – “I mean he wants to play. That’s why you play this game. I know that. I knew that before we signed (Jay Cutler); but I was very upfront with him. I kept him in the loop on everything. He knew exactly what I told him. I was like, ‘You just keep doing your thing.’ He understands. He doesn’t know how long he’s going to keep playing right now. Every day, just keep going out there and when you’re with the ones, roll with them and if that ever changes, we’ll adjust. But that’s what we’re doing right now.”
(There’s a report out that WR Jarvis Landry is under investigation for battery. Have the Dolphins and yourself been notified of the situation?) – “Yes, we’re aware of it. We took the proper steps of what we’re supposed to. Past that, I can’t really comment on anything.”
(What kind of conversations, any convincing you had to have with Owner Stephen Ross before making a move on QB Jay Cutler) – “I mean he’s been great. He’s all about winning. The questions that he asked were mainly what we had been discussing with the locker room and how guys would deal with somebody different coming in. We’ve kind of prided ourselves on not really bringing in too many brand new faces. We’re kind of keeping that locker room pretty tight. Our guys understood kind of the situation we were in and understood the thought process behind everything. I’ve been very open with them with what we were talking about doing. We’ve been communicating with our guys a lot, especially our veteran leaders, and all of those guys understood exactly where I was coming from.”
(How is QB Ryan Tannehill taking everything over the past week? Are you any further along in terms of where things are at with him?) – “It has been a tough few days for him. We were talking about the other day all these stages you go through and we both keep saying we’re going out of order from denial to angry and then all of a sudden we’re depressed and go back to denial. It’s tough. We worked really hard to get to this point and to get it taken away like that, I think it was very frustrated for him. We put this thing together all spring thinking this is the crew we were going to roll with. One cut and all of a sudden all that’s gone. It has been tough. It has been tough for a lot of guys because we’ve been working really hard to get to this point. Now he understands, ‘You guys got to get going and figure out what we’re going to do to win.’”
(I know you were asked about WR Jarvis Landry and you probably don’t want to talk about his contract but are those two at all related that the resolution of this contract will wait until the resolution of the legal issue?) – “No.”
(We saw former Lions WR Calvin Johnson, do you expect him on multiple days? Was this a one-shot deal? Do you want him to give tips to guys like former NFL WR Wes Welker did last year?) – “Calvin has been … When we were out in L.A. last year, he swung by. Him and (Wide Receivers Coach) Shawn (Jefferson) have a really good relationship. I was with him when he was a rookie. So, it’s interesting to see … When I see him retired, it kind of freaks me out a little bit. But I’m only 39, I shouldn’t be too upset. (laughter) He’s not afraid to talk to those guys and tell them what he does. Our guys are doing a good job of … Anytime we bring somebody out, they pick their brain, ask them questions. I don’t know how many days he’s going to be here. Somebody told me, but I forgot. I think he’s going to be here a little bit.”
(What can the receivers pick up from a guy like former Lions WR Calvin Johnson?) – “Just anything from how he prepared, studied. Sometimes when you have a really great player like that, everybody just thinks he just rolled out onto the field and dominated. I was around him long enough to know he worked extremely hard. He treated every day like a game. It wasn’t easy for him because his style of play, he was so physical. He took a lot of tough shots. He wasn’t always healthy when he practiced on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and he would go out there and he’d grind. You respect a guy that’s that good who understands how to grind and fight through the tougher things in football.”
(What’s going to be the best way for QB Jay Culter to become a part of the team considering how close we are to the season?) – “Just come in and work. We talked about it. Do what he did the last time when we were together. We had a lot of new faces. Just come in, put your head down and grind. He knows that he just needs to be a part of it. That’s what we’re looking for. We’re not looking for somebody to come in and do anything extremely different. Our guys are … We feel like we got a lot of good skill players on offense and we’ve got two good quarterbacks that can deliver them the ball, and we feel good about our situation.”
(Has a decision been made on surgery for QB Ryan Tannehill?) – “I’ll let you guys know when I hear officially.”
(You said you think QB Jay Cutler has the system down. Are we still aiming for the second preseason game as a realistic point?) – “I haven’t really gotten … I know he’s not playing Thursday. That’s the best I can tell you right now. I’m (not) past that. I haven’t even got there yet.”
(A couple of housekeeping things, DE Cameron Wake, DT Ndamukong Suh and DE William Hayes were not participating out there. Veteran rest day?) – “We’re giving them one day off a week. I think they snuck one. They didn’t say anything that we’re playing Thursday, so they got a little extra day in there.”
(T Laremy Tunsil same thing as Saturday?) – “Yes. He’s personal reasons.”
(And S Nate Allen?) – “He got hurt … What day was it? When was the last time we practiced? Thursday? Before the scrimmage. Friday? He got hurt. He’ll be back. It shouldn’t be a long time. I don’t know the exact number of days he’s going to miss. He’s kind of nursing something. We’re just being smart.”
(RB Jay Ajayi?) – “He’s in the protocol. That’s all I know. Like I said – I’ve said this a million times – once they go into the protocol, when he’s out there, he’s out there.”
(When you had your first encounter with QB Jay Cutler, what was it that you did in particular to help him clean up his game and become more efficient?) – “We talked a lot about how I called plays and how he thought about plays. We did some things to change up how we were doing things. I was very aware of some of the things, whether he liked or disliked, within a game and may have voided a few things. The longer we were really practicing, and I was calling plays, we did a lot of things where we didn’t script anything. We just called it so he could get a really good feel for me and same thing for me to get a feel for him. It was really good communication there. We knew we had to really expedite the process because we didn’t have a lot of time. It just felt like we were going to be at the season so fast. He did a great job of communicating with me of, ‘This one is not really my favorite, but I like these following plays.’ We just leaned on those. He did a great job. He protected the ball. We had a ton of injuries. There were receivers moving in and out. He just never blinked.”
