Adam Gase – December 18, 2016
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Sunday, December 18, 2016
Head Coach Adam Gase
(I believe you are No. 2 in the league right now in terms of point differential from halftime through the end of games, including overtime. What do you attribute that to?) – “Slow starts and then picking it up. (laughter) I don’t know. It’s something that we actually talked about. What if we actually got something going in the first quarter, how different maybe some of these games would be? A little bit has to do with our coaching staff doing a good a job of making some adjustments. Our players are coming out energized and taking advantage of anything that they saw in the first half. (We’re) just really playing four quarters. I think our guys are in great shape and they stay aggressive and they don’t let a couple of bad things early affect them.”
(Do you ever go Knute Rockne on them at halftime?) – “Not really. That’s not my style. Guys do a good job. They get themselves juiced up pretty good.”
(How far along would you say CB Tony Lippett has come as a cornerback from the beginning of the season to now?) – “He’s done a great job as far as staying with what he’s being coached to do. He’s fought through little adversities. He had some rough games and he’s had a couple of times where people want him out of there, outside our building, and kind of given up on the fact that he was a wide receiver that went to the other side of the ball. He struck with it. He practiced hard. He practices hard every day and he tries to get better and he competes and then every week he’s gotten a little bit better. This last game was a good indication of why we like him over there. His ball skills are unique for a corner, and when he gets his hands on the ball, he usually brings it down.”
(Did the game tape show you anything about QB Matt Moore’s game that by the naked eye you didn’t realize or appreciate?) – “No. I think it was pretty much what we thought it was going to be as far as we were going to get some unscheduled plays and he did a good job staying with what we talked about all week. They did do some things that surprised us a little bit. They were a little more aggressive on third down than I think we anticipated; but we took advantage of it.”
(Speaking of that, Bill Parcells, he used to always speak about when a team wants to bring heat on third downs or they want to blitz you, you make them pay every single time, as teams actually relish that. Is that kind of the mindset that you’re instilling over here as well?) – “A little bit. Every game is different. Sometimes you can be aggressive because guys are sitting on the ball or sitting on the sticks or they’re pressing you. Sometimes guys, they bring everybody, but they play soft and they’ll let you catch a ball in front and just hope they can tackle. They’ll get you underneath the first down. But yesterday was a great example of they were being aggressive and playing tight enough to where we had an opportunity to go over the top.”
(How did C/G Kraig Urbik’s play at center compared to what you’ve been getting with C/G Anthony Steen?) – “He did a good job. It’s hard to compare one game. (Anthony) Steen did a lot of good things for us in the games that he played. Yesterday was just … There are some growing pains there and guys are getting used to playing with each other.”
(We’ve seen examples of guys that become special teams demons and make careers out of it. Was that a conversation you ever had to have with S Walt Aikens in terms of saying you might not have a lot of defensive snaps but if you focus on this or did he know that naturally?) – “Walt (Aikens) just … Basically whatever opportunity he gets, he’s going to take full advantage of it. We encourage all our guys, whether they’re on special teams or defense, to make sure they can contribute as many ways as possible and Walt’s (Aikens) the kind of guy that if he gets an opportunity on defense, you’ll get everything he has. If special teams is his role for that week, then you’re going to get something from him.”
(As far as the run defense is concerned – obviously, you’ve had some difficulty there – what are some things that need to be done to make sure that’s right?) – “You have to keep working on your fits and (have) all three, basically – the d-line, linebackers and the secondary – everybody fitting it together. We’ve had a lot of moving parts going in and out, especially the last couple weeks. We get starters back and then we lose a guy. Sometimes it becomes difficult. It’s no different than when we talked about the offensive line trying to get those guys some chemistry. It’s the same thing on defense. You’re just trying to play off each other, and we keep having all these moving pieces. That’s one of the reasons why we struggled. We’ve got to try to find a way to play together. Sometimes it becomes tough. When you’re playing a team that has us covered up pretty good and then they get to that next level, we have to make sure we get them down the first time.”
(LB Jelani Jenkins spoke about communication. Do you think guys moving in and out of the lineup is a big part of why the communication might not be …) – “Sometimes. Every play is like its own little story, and it’s hard to say it is just one thing. You try to clean things up as far as fast as possible. I think at the end of the day, if we can get better at making sure we’re consistently tackling on the first hit – and we get that guy down – you’re going to see a lot of these yards, really, go away, because now you don’t have yards after contact. Now all of a sudden 4 yards, it’s becoming 12. If we can avoid some of that, we’ll be in better shape. We have to make sure that we get that first guy down. It’s tough, because I think we set a record yesterday for most guys playing in hand casts. (laughter) It has kind of really affected our tacking ability. (laughter) But I love the fact that our guys are … They’re selling out. They’re giving us everything they have. We have to make some improvement here in the last two games and prevent these guys from getting shorter gains becoming larger gains.”
(Has TE Dion Sims shown you anything different than you saw in September or early August?) – “It has really been the same. Every time he has been out there, he has contributed. Yesterday, he really lucked out a little bit on those touchdowns. He wasn’t really primary, but he was (in the) right place at the right time and made a play. He made a great catch on that third down in the corner of the end zone and then did a great job as far as what we were asking him to do on the route with … That ball was supposed to go to Damien (Williams), but he did a good job as far as being in the right spot after the initial read was taken away, and Matt (Moore) did a great job of finding him. Then he made a great adjustment on that ball down the field. Once again, that wasn’t really what we planned on throwing. When I saw him turn over there, I was like, ‘Where’s this going?’ That’s the fun part of calling games. When you get some new guys in there, it kind of becomes some street ball sometimes, and it’s fun to be a part of.”
(You spoke in March about wanting to see consistency from TE Dion Sims. Has he sort of exceeded your expectations at all?) – “No. It’s basically what he has been all year. We lost him there for a little bit with some injury, but he has been consistent. He has done a really good job run blocking. He does a really good job (in) pass protection. He has really excelled in the passing game, because I think it’s opportunity. He has gotten some opportunity. He hasn’t been used as just a blocker. Ever since that New England game when he caught that one ball where he was going across the field and made a great catch on third down, he showed everybody, ‘I can run. I can catch.’ There are a lot of things he can do to contribute.”
(You get a convincing win on the road, in the cold, new quarterback, stakes higher than this franchise has been around much the last few years. With all that, what pleases you the most about what you saw?) – “I think the fact that our guys, they stay with our process. Once again, somebody goes down, everybody rallies around them, and they step up their game. You have a guy that comes in that hasn’t played in five years – hadn’t started in five years – (and you have) a guy like Jarvis (Landry) taking a 5-yard pass and going 66 yards for a touchdown. Just little things like that swing the game so much: Special teams stepping up, blocking a punt and scoring a touchdown; defense finding multiple ways to get turnovers; a guy like ‘X’ (Xavien Howard) coming in and absolutely playing as well as I’ve ever seen him play since he has been with us. (There were) just guys stepping up all over the place. You don’t hear our guys putting our head down and being upset if a guy goes down. It’s that rallying cry of next-man-up, and guys have embraced it, and they have done a great job with it.”
(Do you find yourself marveling over DE Cameron Wake, or do you just come to expect that you see it every day?) – “It’s one of those situations where … I hadn’t been on the other side of the ball against him a lot over my career being in a different division in the AFC. I had always heard about him, but being able to see him day-in and day-out, watch how he prepares, watch how he takes care of his body, watch how he practices, and then when you watch him in a game, in my head, I almost feel like he has got like 30 sacks, because I feel like I see him doing his sack dance like five times a game. The guy is unbelievable. He finds a way to make huge plays at the most critical situations of the game. He’s one of those great players that has that ability to where he knows it’s the right time where something amps up in him and he makes a play. That’s what you need out of your playmakers.”
(You mentioned about calling the game for QB Matt Moore. Did it turn out to be the game you expected to call for him?) – “Yes, pretty much. It felt right. It was … There are still some things that I’m trying to learn with him that’s different than Ryan (Tannehill) and it does take a second. Trying to figure out the little ins and outs of how he thinks and how fast he can go or wants to go, how he calls plays, what he does at the line of scrimmage. Every guy is a little different. Some guys process things in certain plays different than another quarterback, so you’re always trying to figure out what’s the best thing to allow him the most amount of time. Do shifts work? Do they not? There’s a whole bunch of little tiny things that you’re always trying to figure out what’s best for that quarterback.”
(WR Jarvis Landry, the cornerback on the touchdown, the cornerback is playing inside leverage and he’s still able to get where he wants to get across the DBs face. How is it that he’s able to get where he wants to on the field whenever he wants to?) – “He knows where the guy is supposed to be. He’s supposed to be outside. So he forced the guy to jump outside, panicked the DB and once he crossed his face, that was basically, if he broke that tackle, then it was him one-on-one with the safety. We were waiting for that one. We were hoping we’d get that coverage and we did. I think everyone on our offense knew where that ball was going. It was just a matter of how far he was going to take it.”
(I’d like to ask you a two-part question on replays. First, what is your process for determining when to throw the red flag? And second, at one point, actually for most of the game last night, you were 2-for-2 in challenges and yet you had one challenge remaining. The Jets were 0-for1 and they had only one challenge remaining. Do you like that system or do you think that should be tweaked?) – “Whatever the system is, it is. I’m not one to really worry about changing rules and things. Whatever they say it is, it is. I’m not here to waste time on that. As far as the challenge goes, we have a pretty good system. I have a lot of confidence between (Assistant Special Teams Coach Marwan) Maalouf and (Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren) Rizzi, as our discussions. It’s really easy for the access that we have to where they kind of follow me on our lines to where I’m able to call plays, and especially on offense, that’s where it can get a little dicey for me to where I’m trying to call plays and at the same time, I’m trying to figure out what’s the right thing to do. You’re trying to do two jobs at the same time, so your mind can be going a little bit all over the place. Those two guys are great to be around because we constantly are communicating during the game, but we talk about it a lot outside of Sunday or Saturday, where if something happens to somebody else, we’re always having those discussions and it’ll be brief but Maalouf does a great job of keeping me updated on situations around the NFL to where, ‘Hey, did you see this happen? Hey, I’m going to send you a cut up. So take a look at this. Just so you know if we’re in that situation, what we’re looking at.’ So those guys do a great job as far as keeping me on track during games and that communication has been critical for us this year.”
(A little off track, but going back to when you put your staff together, you and Defensive Coordinator Vance Joseph don’t have any background together do you?) – “Yes, we were in San Francisco together in 2008.”
(So you got to know him then?)- “Yes, we were both … I was an offensive assistant. He was a defensive assistant.”
(Did you guys sleep last night?) – “A little bit. Not much.”
(When did you guys get in? 4?) – “I think it was 5 (a.m.). So, (it was) fun.”
(You’re so focused on the next game, the next task at hand – laser focused. Your team seems to have taken that firmly, but the same time is there any excitement over what you’ve achieved? I mean to be 9-5 after 1-4, is there any moment of, ‘This is exciting!’) – “I think you know what my answer is going to be right now. (laughter) It’s just wasting paper here, the internet. Whatever. (laughter) That’s been a great thing that our players have just embraced is let’s just focus on what we’re doing right now. We play until somebody tells us not to. We just need to stick with that mantra.”
