Adam Gase – December 7, 2016
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Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Head Coach Adam Gase
(What makes Cardinals RB David Johnson so good in depth?) – “Big guy. Fast. Good vision. He can do multiple things. He’s got all three phases of that position. When you have a guy that’s a threat both running the ball and catching the ball, it makes it very tough.”
(I saw he had 11 receptions of 20 yards or more, which is not usual for that position. How are they getting him down field so effectively?) – “Well, they have a variety of things they do. Sometimes it’s even just catching underneath and him being an explosive player. When he came out of college, that was the one thing that you noticed was he had so many explosive plays. Like, we’re talking like 50-plus yard plays. Some guys you can see when you see them in person, but when you can see a guy (and) how fast he is on tape, he has the skill set that you want for a back, for sure.”
(How often have you had to game plan for CB Patrick Peterson?) – “The last two years. If he’s not the best one, there’s probably two guys that (when you’re) going against (them), you have to be careful. And he’s one of them.”
(The others are N.Y. Jets CB Darrelle Revis and?) – “Richard Sherman is always a nightmare for me. With his skill set, his knowledge of the defense and then his knowledge of other teams’ offenses is something that, as somebody calling plays, you have to be aware of, because he’ll set you up. He’ll set quarterbacks up to make you think you have a guy open and then next thing you know, he’s getting his hands on the ball, which with him is a scary thing because he’ll catch it. He’ll do damage that way.”
(How have they’ve used CB Patrick Peterson against you or is it just a one side, one player? How has it been?) – “Two years ago they matched. They went with him on Emmanuel (Sanders) and (Antonio) Cromartie on ‘D.T.’ (Demaryius Thomas). And then last year, there was nobody for him to really match. I think there were a couple of situations that he traveled some, but he was a guy that we had to be very cautious with what we did towards him, with our game planning. Once Jay (Cutler) went out, I think after the third series – he pulled his hamstring – he had a pretty easy day against us.”
(With Cardinals RB David Johnson, how much of this is going to be a challenge for your linebacking unit?) — “It’s going to be tough. It’s got to be a group effort. This is going to be the toughest challenge we’ve had. This group is good because of their ability to push the ball down the field when they want to. The way that ‘Fitz’ (Larry Fitzgerald) is playing inside, that’s another issue. You start getting into some of that play-action game and he can really … He can hurt you. Now you start handing him the ball, you start throwing the ball, there are a lot of weapons in place there for them to use.”
(How different is it to see a guy with Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald’s size playing at slot receiver?) – “It’s rare. You usually don’t have guys that size inside because most of your nickel players are small. You have to account for … He understands leverage. He understands football. He’s played long enough and seen enough things to where, him moving inside, he knows how to beat almost everything. He knows how to get open on the route that they have called for him. He’s almost going to use what you call against you. And that’s what makes him different than probably a lot of other slot players.”
(Can you give an update on LB Kiko Alonso?) – “Right now, we’re taking it slow. The thumb is what it is, as far as playing with a cast. Really, the bigger concern is seeing how fast his hamstring … See how good he feels coming off of that. That’s the one part that’s a little up in the air for us right now. We just want to make sure that he is as close to – he’s not going to be 100 percent – but as close to being as healthy as he can be by game time.”
(How much would you say playing with the hand wrapped or in a cast affect his tackling? That would be a factor wouldn’t it?) – “It does. The good thing is he’s (Kiko Alonso) not in a club, so he can at least kind of grab. Jelani (Jenkins) was … The whole hand was covered up. That makes it very difficult. With him having fingers exposed, at least he has a chance to – when he tackles – he can grab cloth. It still is difficult, because you don’t have the use of your thumb. It’s probably not an ideal thing for somebody that has to tackle. A lot of his game too is he has made a lot of plays on the ball, and he has to use his hands to do that.”
(Would LB Mike Hull be the contingency plan or would you move guys around?) – “Mike would be our guy. He was last week, and he did a great job. He showed up, for sure. That was something that was very obvious, probably to anybody that was watching the game. His instincts are off the charts. You see how quickly he reacts compared to everybody else. For whatever reason, he has that ability to … Everybody is going one way, he’s going the other way, and he’s usually right. You just watch him play, it’s very impressive.”
(With the offensive line, obviously not playing with C Mike Pouncey is a challenge, but are you comfortable with what you’re getting from C Anthony Steen?) – “He has done a good job, for the most part. We’ve had a couple issues. It seems like he gets thrown in there a lot of times when we’re on the road, which is … It’s harder to manage everything when you’re going silent count. And that’s no secret – that’s around the league. You’ll always see how the defensive line, they get a jump a lot of times, and we have to a great job as far as mixing up the cadence. Sometimes, there are so many things going on, and we start getting all these exotic looks, and you’re trying to get everything set up for the quarterback and the rest of the guys on the line. Sometimes you forget about, ‘Maybe we need to go on the second head bob,’ or, ‘We have to change something up as far as the cadence.’ That’s where we all have to do a great job as far as helping him, putting him in good position. I have to make sure I call in enough times and say, ‘It’s a different cadence.’ That’s why, on the road, you need the full group to be on it, because when you have those slight mistakes, all of a sudden you’re backing up 5 (yards), because you tried to go on two, and we’re not all on the same page.”
(CB Xavien Howard, how’d he look today?) – “For what we did, he moved around well. The fact that he actually went on the turf and did some things is encouraging. The last couple weeks, he hadn’t really wanted to do anything on the turf. For him to get out there and do some things, that was a good sign.”
(What do you need to see from CB Xavien Howard before he plays?) – “It’s more on him. It’s how he feels. We want to make sure that we’re doing … We need him to feel good about when it’s time for him to come up, not vice versa. Really, the way that we’re going about this is its 100 percent when he feels like he’s able to compete at a high level, that’s when he’ll be out there.”
(Will DE Jason Jones have the same role give or take? It has been a few weeks or a couple weeks.) – “He came back; he looks good, and he’s moving around good. He feels better, because he was banged up just like a lot of those guys are. The fact that he had the last two weeks to recover probably wasn’t terrible for him, just for being an older guy playing that position. We’ll see how his role fits in this week with the rest of that group.”
