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Adam Gase – December 20, 2017 (Conference Call) Download PDF version

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Head Coach Adam Gase (Conference Call)

(Can you bring us up to date on DE Charles Harris?) – “He’s been doing exactly what we were hoping he would do and that’s disrupt the quarterback. A point of emphasis that we made to all of our guys up front was it’s not necessarily about sacks, but it’s just the pressure to get the quarterback to get the ball out and force him to make some bad decisions. In the snaps that he’s has played – and we’re a pretty deep group there – he’s done a good job of that.”

(How about your team’s state of mind after last week? It seems like the playoff possibilities are there but they’re pretty slim. What’s your team’s state of mind?) – “Our guys are focused on this game. One thing that we’ve made an emphasis on is in the NFL, as soon as everybody starts saying you’re out of something, all of a sudden you get thrown back in the mix. Our job is to go out there and try to win one game and see what happens. We really lost control of our own destiny after last week, but there’s a lot of things that possibly could happen. But we’ve got to take care of our own business before worrying about anybody else.”

(You’re facing a Chiefs team that seems to have righted the ship after some tough sailing for about two months. What do you make of the Chiefs?) – “They’ve been a tough team for a while. Being in that division for six years and seeing (Chiefs Head) Coach (Andy) Reid come in and (Chiefs QB) Alex (Smith) once he got there, they got it rolling and they’ve been consistent. They’re one of those teams that they’ve just gotten those players that were all young when I was (in Denver). They’ve become veteran players and you can see their growth and development and how they’ve become really good players. It’s a tough matchup. They’re always a tough matchup, even when I was in Denver. You’ve got to do the best you can to try to make sure that you make it hard for them to score points and don’t let them have a bunch of explosive plays. Offensively, we’ve just got to do a good job protecting the football and trying to sustain drives.”

(The Pro Bowl announcement was yesterday and Chiefs QB Alex Smith wasn’t one of the three quarterbacks taken. Do you see him as having a Pro Bowl season?) – “Yes, I thought he was. He’s doing a good job of running that offense. He’s throwing a lot of touchdown passes; he doesn’t turn the ball over. They do what they have to do, whether it be attack down the field, use the short passing game, whether he’s got to run. Alex is going to do what he needs to do to win the game. That was the thing that I always liked about him. He didn’t care about stats and all of those types of things. He was more concerned about, ‘What do we need to do to win?’”

(How difficult is it to pick your poison on the offense when it comes to Chiefs QB Alex Smith and they’ve got three players that are looking at 1,000 yards offensively – WR Tyreek Hill, TE Travis Kelce and RB Kareem Hunt – all guys who got elected to the Pro Bowl. How hard is it to pick your poison defensively on how you attack them?) – “Yes, it’s just a tough matchup game. When those guys get one-on-one matchups, that’s where they’re really hurting people. It’s all about trying to stay as tight – coverage-wise – stay as tight as you can and make throws hard to the two guys outside and then you have to do a great job attacking the running back. If you take a wrong angle, if you don’t wrap up, if you don’t gang tackle, (Hunt’s) going to run through contract and he’s going to make a 2-yard gain into 10. ”

(After the Chargers game, I think they said, ‘Well we respected WR Tyreek Hill all game, but you can’t literally do it all game.’ When you look at putting somebody over the top, especially with Chiefs WR Tyreek Hill, how hard does it make it on the rest of the defense if you have to roll coverage his direction to make sure you don’t get beat over the top?) – “It’s not the first time that anybody’s ever done that to somebody. Everybody else has got to really focus in on their job and everybody’s got to step up and make plays. When you’ve got a guy that’s dangerous and can change the game in one play, you’ve just got to make sure you do a good job of whatever coverage is called or whatever defense is called. Everybody’s got to roll in that defense and they have to execute it.”

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