Adam Gase – December 19, 2018
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Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(We saw CB Xavien Howard come back. Where is he on his progress and is he likely for Sunday?) – “We’ll see how this week goes. Hopefully we can get him out to practice and move him around against some competition. It’s trending in the right direction. I think he’s done a good job of doing everything that he’s been asked to do, working hard and trying to get out there as fast as he can.”
(How deserved is his Pro Bowl recognition?) – “He’s had some really good games. He’s made some big plays in key moments for us and flipped some games for us. I think he’s done a good job, especially the last six or seven weeks. All of his coverage has been tight. He’s around the ball all of the time. He’s kind of preventing guys from getting the ball thrown their way. It’s hard to really think of too many guys that are really above him.”
(You guys had CB Bobby McCain shadowing Vikings WR Adam Thielen last week. Why was he qualified for that job?) – “We were just trying to get the right matchups. Him and Minkah (Fitzpatrick), we were trying to get the right body type on the right guy. We thought that was the best thing for us to do. We rotated some of those other guys in there. We were trying to do everything we could to give us the best chance to win.”
(How disappointing was it to see RB Frank Gore’s season end the way it did and also, as a head coach, how would you describe what it’s been like coaching him?) – “It’s disappointing considering the amount of games, the amount of starts that he’s had in a row. I wish he could’ve finished this out. He’s a special person. He’s a special player. I think it’s hard to find somebody that’s really done anything comparable to him, especially the way football is now and how he’s run early in his career. To last this long and then to produce the way he has at this age is just something you just probably won’t ever see again.”
(Has RB Frank Gore expressed anything to you about wanting to come back next year?) – “We haven’t gotten there yet. Right now, it’s really hard for him to just really swallow at this point.”
(The offense is close to the top of the league in average yards per rush but the number of rushes is down. What would be the reason why there’s not a greater amount of rushes?) – “Because we’re bad on third down. We don’t have a lot of plays. I don’t even know what our play average is, but it’s not very good. I think that’s really probably the reason why the rush attempts are that low. The yardage is high because we’ve had those explosive runs. I don’t even know how many we’ve had. Having a 75-yarder, those type of things – that will do it for you real fast. That will get the average up. That will get the yardage up. If we had more plays, we’d have more attempts. The fact that we find ourselves in third-and-seven-plus way too much and we haven’t been very good at even coming close to converting them, that really hurts us.”
(How do you look at the big-play nature of your offense? Is that something you rely on?) – “We obviously have had to because that’s been something that’s really helped us more than anything. To rely on it, that’s a little scary to do because you can go a whole game without getting one of those. We’ve been lucky in the fact that we’ve had good execution on a lot of those plays that we’ve had explosive plays. You want more of that to where it looks like it does in a walkthrough. In this last game, they blocked that perfect. (Kalen) Ballage used his speed, didn’t hesitate and just blew past everybody. That was great to see. The more consistent we can be on things like that, the better results we’ll have.”
(S Reshad Jones expressed some frustration about how he’s being used on Monday. How do you feel about where he is mentally right now?) – “He’s fine. I asked him about it. I was giving him a hard time. The way that we’ve had to move people around, we kind of get caught in certain situations. Him and T.J. (McDonald) are kind of interchangeable to where it’s almost like, I don’t want to say exactly how we do things, but you think of it as just left-right and there’s a slot on that side, that guy goes down and the other guy is back. It’s kind of dictated by the formation in some of these cases. We want to put him in the best position possible. We’ve kind of had to do things a certain way because of who we have out there. Minkah (Fitzpatrick) going to corner and us kind of moving all these guys around, that’s kind of why that’s happened.”
(We didn’t notice S T.J. McDonald out there today. If he can’t play, what are your options?) – “We’re just going to have to keep working through all these scenarios and moving guys around. We at least have some options as far as guys that have been back there either this year or in practice. The good thing is we have multiple guys with flexibility.”
(You picked up DT Kendrick Norton off Carolina’s practice squad. What can you tell us about him and when you’re claiming a guy off another team’s practice squad, how much can you learn about that guy since he’s in another team’s camp?) – “You’re going off your college scouting for the most part. That’s what our pro department does. That’s what they do. It’s non-stop evaluating preseason film. Really, most of the work is done before we even hit the season. Probably in those first two weeks, they’ve evaluated everybody on the practice squad and they’re always constantly watching guys if they get moved up or play a game and then evaluate them again. For us, it was somebody we were interested in the whole draft process. We go through this every week. (General Manager) Chris (Grier) and his crew go through all of this every week of looking at everybody’s practice squad to see if anything changes. If we have a guy go down, we have to always be ready to see, if we don’t have what we’re looking for on our practice squad, being able to go grab somebody else. We’re kind of in that part of the year where it’s tough to get guys off of practice squads because they end up staying where they’re at because they know that system and they know the season is in the final two weeks. Why leave when you already know that system? It makes it tough to get a guy to come to you, but it was a good opportunity for us and a good opportunity for him. We’re always looking for big guys whether it’s offensive line or defensive line.”
(I wanted to ask you about the injured jerseys for RB Kenyan Drake and WR DeVante Parker. Now they’re out of them, does that mean they can be hit in practice and is it an indicator that they’re healthy from the shoulders?) – “They could be hit. We’re out of padded days, so they shouldn’t get hit at this point. But yes, that’s what it would mean, that they’re in better shape than what they were a couple weeks ago.”
(What have you learned from RB Kalen Ballage throughout the season?) – “I thought he did a good job of just sticking with learning everything (and) practicing hard. There was a time there where he could have mentally flipped a switch to where it would’ve been really hard for him. Sometimes when you’re a rookie, you don’t understand why you’re not playing and (wondering) ‘How do I get up?’ He’s looking in front of him and we have four other backs and they’re playing to him on special teams. He just never wavered. He just kept grinding. He did unbelievable on scout team to where our defense was struggling because he goes one speed. What you saw on Sunday, that’s how he practices. He finishes every run in the end zone and we’re always waiting for him to get back. He’s doing things the way you want a pro to do it.”
(Have you noticed any difference in the attention that guys are paying or the energy at practice or anything, based off the playoff possibilities not looking as clear as maybe last week?) – “I thought today was a good day. I thought guys were really good in our meetings. This defense is similar to some of the ones that we’ve seen in the past where a lot of our guys have recall on when I’m going through, here’s what they’re doing and here’s why they do some of this stuff. Guys were sharp in meetings and asked good questions. And then at practice, I thought offensively those guys, they were running and executing what we were asking them to do. Defensively we’re a little short-handed right now because we’re beat up for practice. Hopefully by Sunday we’ll be a little healthier. But I thought guys were good in the team meeting and individual meeting. There was good attention. There seemed (to be) good energy at practice. I don’t think they’re focusing on, ‘Hey, two weeks from now.’ I think they’re worried about trying to win this game and knowing that, ‘hey, is there a possibility?’ Yeah. It’s a small percentage, but you keep fighting to the end. Weird things happen in this league and you just never know.”
(So stunts against your offensive front, it seems like a lot of the damage has been done … What’s the deal, what’s the problem?) – “We haven’t done a very good job of passing them off, to where when we get picked, that guy is slamming him down and being able to re-trace and understand there’s a guy coming back to you. Sometimes we get hung up on them and that’s where we need to make huge improvement. We have to understand. We see it enough with our defense. We should be better than what we are right now. We’ve seen it enough. We understand what they’re trying to do and we haven’t really done a good job of reacting to some of the things that teams have done. There’s been some creative things that teams have done that we haven’t really seen that caught us off guard a couple of times; but at some point, we’ve got to understand kind of just the general philosophy of what they’re trying to do and we’ve got to find a way to get better at it. We’ve got to change up probably some of our protections when we do that. There’s probably a couple of things we can help them there. But at the end of the day, it’s about not hanging on one guy too long and just understanding there’s somebody going to replace him.”
(So is that physical? Is that mental? Is that instincts? Is that not studying enough?) – “I would say it’s not (not) studying enough. Everybody knows that’s going to happen. When you get beat on something in a game, you’re going to see it the next week. Like, teams are always going to test you. If you can’t stop like a wham play, you’re going to see it every week until you get zero yards or a negative play. If you’re giving up 20 yards a clip, you’re going to see it the next week. We know we’re always going to see it right away and we’ve just got to keep working at it. We’ve got to find some ways to take the edge off a little bit to where protection-wise, we can help ourselves by just gapping it up. Now you lose your back, you lose your tight end and any kind of check-downs. But there are some ways that we can try to help them up front and then at the same time, when we have to go six-man protection, we have to do a better job passing them off.”
(When CB Xavien Howard was out, how much did that hurt you schematically?) – “It’s going to hurt you a lot. It’s like when Laremy is out. When Laremy is in there, he’s on an island and we can double everybody else. But without Laremy, we’re not in good shape.”
(Did you expect T Laremy Tunsil to make the Pro Bowl?) – “I did. I think he’s the best tackle in football. I was shocked because without him, we can’t do anything. He’s on an island every play every game and he knows it. We tell him in the meetings. ‘Here’s what we’re doing protection-wise,’ and I tell him, ‘You’re on your own.’ And the way he sets and the way that he punches and sits down … Even last week, he would have been fine, then one of our backs runs into the back of him and knocks him off.”
(Why do you think T Laremy Tunsil didn’t make it?) – “I don’t know. That’s hard for me to explain. I don’t know the actual percentages of who gets a say and all those types of things.”
(Thinking about the nine sacks, about how many of those do you think QB Ryan Tannehill could have or should have done something to limit or prevent it pre- or post-span?) – “There was one pre-snap that I wasn’t real happy with what he did. I went through them the other day. Really, for the most part, he didn’t have much of a chance.”
