Adam Gase – December 18, 2017
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Monday, December 18, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Just a quick thing on the right side of the offensive line. T Sam Young and G/T Jesse Davis seemed to have played well. How would you assess how Jesse has done at guard the last three weeks and have you seen enough of him at tackle to have a pretty good feel for what he could do at right tackle?) – “I feel good about what we’ve seen so far at both spots. I still think it’s … there’s a lot of things where they come up and it’s the first time that he’s seen it. He’s trying to react as quick as he can and use all the tools that he’s learned so far to help himself. There’s always going to be some growing pains and I just think the more experience that he gains, the better he’s going to get.”
(How much time have you spent or will you spend looking at playoff scenarios?) – “I don’t … I never spend any time on it.”
(So you’re in until you’re out and you’re told you’re out basically? Is that …?) – “Basically, yes.”
(How much concern, if any, do you have about the guys motivation in the last two weeks? Any?) – “I would hope that they would be very motivated. They’re playing for their jobs, so…”
(And that’s regardless of what the playoff situation might be?) – “Pretty much.”
(Do you weigh these last two games a good deal in offseason personnel evaluations?) — “Yes. I think you do. See how guys play.”
(Speaking of young guys, I guess you’re still in the evaluation process. How do you think LB Stephone Anthony’s played since he’s been injected in the last month and how has LB Chase Allen played as a starter?) – “I think both of those guys have done, for the most part, they’ve done a good job. There’s been a few times where things have happened where you wish they would make the play or do something different; but it’s kind of part of the growth process with young players and ‘Steph’ being kind of thrown in there, in the middle of the season, and trying to learn what our defense is and kind of trying to find his role. Those guys have been a couple of guys that have been positives for us (and) consistent, too.”
(You mentioned yesterday after the game that you wanted to look at the film before going into any kind of detail on QB Jay Cutler’s performance. Now that you’ve seen it what does the film show you?) – “Well, we had three interceptions and four times we lost the ball. I know it’s not really probably one of his best days that he’s had. He’s trying to do things that we talked about doing. I think there were a few times where we’re throwing the ball a lot there, especially in the second half, and you start pressing a little bit. He took a couple of the matchups that we talked about taking and you know the first pick, there’s nothing I can really tell him to do different on that one. The third down, I wish he would have done something different. At the end of the game, he’s trying to make sure he doesn’t take a sack. That one was unfortunate; just trying to keep it alive, but we have no time outs and there’s 30 seconds left. If he takes a sack there, it’s probably pretty much over. We just need to do a better job of putting ourselves in better position and making sure that we get the ball out on time and get it to the right guy and we all have to be on the same page. If we do that, that’s usually when we have better success and less turnovers.”
(What’s the message to the team at this point?) – “We’ve got to go back to work on Wednesday. It’s one of those deals where you can right a lot of things by winning a game on Sunday, so just keep battling. We didn’t play very well and that was all three phases. They basically came out and they did what they needed to do to win the game and we did nothing to stop them.”
(The tight ends this year, have you gotten as much as you want? Close to that? How would you assess?) – “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out whenever the season is over.”
(In watching the tape yesterday, anything else that stood out that disappointed you beyond the simply execution?) – “I mean we didn’t win the game. We talked about stopping ‘Shady’ (LeSean McCoy). We talked about stopping Tyrod (Taylor). We had one half of where we didn’t do either and one half where we kind of slowed one guy down and then we didn’t stop the other guy. Offensively, we talk about the biggest thing we couldn’t do was turn the ball over, and we did that, and we needed touchdowns in the red area. We were moving the ball and had good things going and then we kind of hurt ourselves. We had a run play for negative yards or something happened where we’d be behind the sticks, which we knew we couldn’t get against these guys because they did a good job. When we get in third-and-long, they were tough. We did the opposite of what we talked about.”
(After watching the video what was your take on the penalties?) – “I mean everyone has a different deal. The pre-snap penalties are frustrating because it’s hard to understand why they happen. We’ve cut them way down but it’s just not good enough when we have one, because it’s a critical situation. We have the first drive of the game and we feel good, we get a first down and think we’re in good shape and then all of a sudden you’re second-and-15 and then you’re third-and-17. It’s brutal. It just hurts you. Then when you have post-(play) penalties, (they) are just beyond frustrating.”
(WR DeVante Parker had his most productive day in several weeks. Did you like what you saw from him yesterday?) – “Yes, it was good to see him make some plays. It was good to see him win a jump ball. It looked like he was running a lot better. I think we had a shot on that third-and-long when we ran a slip screen. I wish Jay (Cutler) would have thrown the ball a little bit where he could have caught it on the run. We had it fairly blocked well and could have given us a chance. It looked like his legs were good, where I didn’t see him limping or his ankle causing him any kind of issues. It was good to finally feel like he was back to his normal self.”
(How did DE Charles Harris play?) – “I thought he did well. Having a guy like that when you’re going against (Bills QB) Tyrod (Taylor), it’s nice to have somebody that can really pursue him and close the cushion. That’s what makes (Taylor) so hard to play against. When he’s completing passes and then he starts breaking out of the pocket, you need as many guys as you can that can pursue him and cause pressure on him. (Harris) can do that and he tried to do everything that we asked him to do. That’s kind of a strange game for him, because you can’t pass rush like you normally do. You have to be a little more controlled, you have to understand if rush lanes start opening up, (Taylor) is going to hurt your worse than what he would do if you contain him and keep him in the pocket. (Harris) tried to do what we asked him to do.”
(Is it harder to make personnel evaluations when you see these players, at times at their best, beating the two Super Bowl contestants from last year and then other times seeing them not play up to your standards? Does that make it more difficult to evaluate guy by guy?) – “I think it’s just harder to do during the season. You’re getting ready for the next game and to sit there and keep constantly … You’re trying to evaluate on the run, I guess is the best way to put it. The hardest thing is it’s just like you guys are, we’re probably similar in the same way, you’re only as good as your last game. Nobody cares what we did against New England now. Nobody cares what we did the week before that. Everybody’s looking at the Buffalo game. What you did in the Buffalo game is who you are. That’s what makes it hard to evaluate during the season. You kind of remember that last one. That’s why we like to, at the end of the season, take some time to get away from it, come back and evaluate, so now you can say, ‘Alright, let’s go back and look at the whole thing.’ Now you can try to get a true evaluation of how well did we play in that first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter and then go from there. When you lose the last game you play, you have a little bit of a bitter taste in your mouth and that can change the way you feel about certain guys.”
