Adam Gase – January 5, 2017
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Thursday, January 5, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase
(So what was the process with the QB Ryan Tannehill decision?) – “Yesterday, just watching him move around, it just felt like we were still – we still needed more time. It just felt it was the right thing to do just so we can move on in this week and not play this ‘What are we going to do?’ And just focus on what we’re doing right now with Matt (Moore) and the game plan to where guys can just focus on that and not worry about if there is a possibility of him coming back this week.”
(How important is it to have a decision and know for everybody?) – “I think it just … I mean it’s just little tiny things. There is just no gray area for anybody. I think this week is very important for us to focus on the task at hand and not have anything that could possibly distract our guys from the game.”
(Could you take us through the conversation you had with QB Matt Moore when you let him know that it’s him again?) – “I told him nothing’s changing. I’m just going to say Ryan’s (Tannehill) not going to play this week.”
(And he just…?) – “I mean, it’s the same. That’s just how he is. He just moves on and when he knows in his mind he’s going to tell me I’m playing, I’m playing. If you say different, then I’ll move on from there.”
(Did you feel like QB Ryan Tannehill could have practiced this week?) – “I think we’re close. I think we’re close but it’s still … Like I said yesterday, we’re still kind of in that gray area where we’ve got to keep talking to him and he needs to keep letting us know where he’s at and how he feels and keep talking to the doctors. We’re still in a lot of conversation and every day he starts moving around. We try to do different drills with him and just to try to figure out what he can articulate to us.”
(Some of the outside world is maybe just kind of zeroing in on this team for the first time this season and when they look at some of the numbers, the points scored against, yardage, they might do some head scratching. How would you describe what has gone on here this season and the way that this team has done what it’s done?) – “It’s about winning games. All the statistics really don’t matter at the end of the day. I think turnover margin is really key, and we’ve had some games … I think it’s the most, at least that I’ve ever been a part of, where we’ve had zero turnovers in games. That’s been critical for us because it puts us in position in the fourth quarter to give ourselves a chance. And really, that’s what this league’s about. Who’s going to be in it in the fourth quarter and then who can make a play, whether it be score a touchdown at the end in some capacity or stop a team from scoring a touchdown? We’ve been in that situation so many times this year and it’s gone in our favor quite a bit. Guys have stepped up and made plays at the right time.”
(Is that kind of what the idea is for Sunday? To survive into the fourth quarter and make a play or two?) – “I think for us, we’re trying to figure out a way to put three good phases together. We’re not going to sit there and hope we’re in the fourth quarter. We’re going in wanting to play well early. We want to get started faster. That’s been a point of emphasis. We’ve had a couple of games where it looks like we’re going to be all right and start a little quicker and then we’ll have one or two plays that just kind of set us back. If we can clean up a few things, we’ll put ourselves in better position earlier in the game. We have to have our minds right and make sure that we’re executing and calling the right plays offensively, defensively, making sure we’re executing on special teams. If we do those type of things then we’ll have a better start than what we’ve had a lot of the games.”
(You guys have the slowest start in the NFL in terms of first quarter but then one of the better third quarters. Have you thought about taking the ball first or what’s the thought process to…?) – “Yes, it was a discussion last week. It’s one of those things that every week that I start thinking about should we just do something like that; but then again, I think about us scoring a touchdown at the end of the half and then getting one at the beginning of the second half, then all of a sudden we’re 20-14 (against the Patriots). So we’ve had success doing that. I think our guys know what the formula for us is and they like what we do. It’s just if we can just do a couple of things better early, we put ourselves in better shape.”
(Have you looked at why the team is struggling so much in the first quarter? I mean is it penalties, is it…? – “Well, when we do play defense first, a lot of the games we’ve had less plays on offense. Really that’s what it’s come down to. We haven’t started as fast on offense. We’ve had a lot of games were like 9 plays, 12 plays max. If we could give ourselves a better chance instead of going three-and-out, three-and-out and then all of a sudden we kick it into gear, that would help us.”
(Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi told us that you guys are freezing some footballs to try to harden them up. Are you going to get a chance to get on the field before Sunday? Is there any chance you’ll get a little walkthrough outside Saturday or anything like that?) – “No. I mean it’s not a big concern for me. It’s the NFL and you play in all kinds of weather. These guys are all over from different parts of the country. There’s nobody that hasn’t played in the cold at any point in their career.”
(Just to be clear, freezing the football and things like that, is that something that you’ve seen in other places as well?) – “Everybody has a different … I’ve been places where they froze the indoor (field), when we went up to Green Bay when I was in Detroit one time. That was a great experience, and they still drummed us. (laughter) At the end of the day, you just show up and you play.”
(Have you found in your experience that there has been any time that you had to maybe tweak your game plan because the weather was so frigid?) – “We go in every week. If we feel like it’s going to be rain, wind, snow, bad field conditions, we always have a thought process going in of how you need to play the game.”
(S Bacarri Rambo and LB Jelani Jenkins were out there. Did they look like themselves?) – “They looked good. Jelani has been out obviously for a little bit, so he’s feeling better than what he has in a long time. Rambo is doing everything he can to put himself in position to where he can go. We’re still going through his process to figure out how good he does feel. Is he going to be ready to go on Sunday? Things look positive right now. Hopefully we don’t have any setbacks, because I think we need all hands on deck right now.”
(And CB Byron Maxwell, too?) – “We haven’t had him out at practice yet, and we’re still trying to figure out where we’re at with him right now. We’re running out of time, if we have any shot for him to play. It has been a while since he has practiced, so we’re going to have to evaluate that.”
(Tackling is always a big deal week after week, but after last week’s performance has that been more of a point of emphasis this week?) – “The unfortunate thing is it’s a point of emphasis every week. Our guys keep working on it and really what it comes down to is we have to do a better job of pursing the ball, gang tackling, get a lot of guys around the ball. If we can do that, we’ll at least minimize gains. That’s really the key to this game. You see the teams that are very good tackling teams, it’s usually with more than one guy around the ball. In games we’ve been good at, we’ve had a lot of guys running to the ball. In the games that we haven’t done well, there’s a lot of one-on-ones. If we can pursue with a purpose and really bring a great energy, that’s going to give us our best chance.”
(With this receiving corps, obviously they kind of balance out the offense when teams start to stack the box. How important is their ability to space the field for RB Jay Ajayi’s success?) – “It’s really critical that we’re winning our one-on-ones. We’re getting some one-on-ones. Jarvis (Landry) does make it tough for some defenses to just solely say, ‘You have to cover this guy one-on-one.’ If he shakes free and there’s any kind of green grass – which we saw in the Jets game, which they were doing, they were stacking the box and we got some one-on-ones – he made some explosive plays. Kenny (Stills) made a big play in that game. DeVante (Parker) has done it in the past for us. Each guy is taking their turn. But the biggest thing for us is when we do get an opportunity and we get one-on-one matchups, if we create explosive plays it’s going to help pull a guy out of the box, because teams aren’t going to want to take a chance of us busting out a 60-yard touchdown. We have to win our one-on-one matchups, but we also – once we make that, we win on those routes – we have to make something happen afterwards, which our guys have done a good job of. We just have to continue doing it.”
(As a coach, would you rather have a team be able to run all over you or a team beat you with big plays?) – “You try to take away what the team does best. And that’s really what the goal is when you go into every game. Sometimes it doesn’t work out the way you want to and sometimes you play an offense that’s really, really good and you do everything you can to take that away. Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do about it.”
(With your defensive line, you mentioned them after the game, that’s such a strength for you guys. That’s your biggest financial commitment. Do you feel that group has given you good value this year?) – “I do. I’ve never been around a group that’s really produced like they have and been as impactful as an entire group. They really have done a good job. That’s a lot to put on them to entirely say, ‘You guys have to be the best in the league every week. We can’t have any errors.’ We still have some young players that are learning how to play together. When you have too many plays, I always go back to how we perform on offense can dictate what happens to those guys because once the play numbers start going up, it’s tough. You’re taking on double-teams for 80 plays, you’re going to get fatigued after a while. Our best games have come on defense when we do a good job on offense of occupying the ball, allowing those guys to be within 55 to 60 plays. When that has happened, our guys have been dominant. We need to do a better job on offense to make sure we’re possessing the ball. That has been our goal every week. We just haven’t really come through all the time.”
(When you have a defense that’s kind of getting the best of both worlds as far as what the Patriots have, being able to keep two safeties deep, and also being able to stop the run with adding few players to the box there, can the short passing game, can that kind of serve as an extension of the run game for you to keep the sticks moving?) – “Yes, the hardest thing about the Patriots is with what they play, you just never know how many guys are actually coming. All of a sudden, you start working the short passing game, and there’s a three-man rush, and eight guys dropping. And now you’re trying to get to the next level. They do a great job of changing things up. They give you different looks off of the same look, as far as coverage. Their front looks the exact same, their back end looks the exact same, and it turns out to be completely different types of coverages. That’s what makes them tough. That’s why that’s a good coaching staff and the players are executing their defense about as well as anybody in the league right now.”
(Some of your better running performances has been against 3-4 defenses. Have you looked into that, are is that just a coincidence?) – “I think when we finally got healthy, we had a run of 3-4 teams, which I think is a little bit coincidence. I think our guys got used to how 3-4 teams fitted up. We’ve had a couple of games where we haven’t had the best games against 3-4 teams as well. But, when you start seeing the same thing over and over again, you get used to … It’s like reps in practice. You get used to how everything looks and you get used to it. You get used to fitting up how their defense is going to play. Coming out of training camp when you play a 4-3 team, it was … When we went to Seattle, we at least had an idea how our angles were going to be and things like that. I think it’s been a little bit of coincidence.”
(There are so few players who have been in the playoffs, who have been in the postseason much less played in a postseason game. Do you rely on them to kind of talk to the players about what this is like, and the speed of the game and the intensity?) – “Yes. You have a lot of … You have your guys that have been involved. Really, they do it on their own. They start grabbing guys and kind of explain to them how things will be and how things will pick up. You try to explain to them as coaches. But sometimes as coaches, when you’re not playing with these guys, they are like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ But, it’s real. The intensity is real, and really when it comes from other players, that’s really the best advice they can get. I think really its experience. You need to go through it, and they’ll feel it. Once we hit that stadium on Sunday, or even before the game, they’ll feel that it’s a different feel.”
(So you think there’s a different atmosphere?) – “(Yes). Absolutely.”
(The last time the Steelers faced a quarterback making his first postseason start was five years ago against the Denver Broncos. What do you remember about that game?) – “I remember it being an interesting week to say the least. That was, that was … They were really good coming into that game. I think they were either No. 1 or No. 2 in defense. We came out throwing the ball, which was … We hit on a couple of big plays and made some big plays on third down. Tim (Tebow) did a good job in that game. Guys were making plays. We felt we were in control for most of the game. We turned it over one time and they took advantage of it, and next thing you know, we’re going into overtime. It only took one play. The problem was, it was the first year we had the new overtime rules. So we scored a touchdown and half of our team was still sitting on the bench, even though we talked about it over 100 times.”
(What was the call in overtime?) – “We were doing something where we were bringing guys down in motion, and they were bringing both safeties in the box. We called a play-action off of it. We brought Eddie Royal all the way down. We had Demaryius (Thomas) running a pop pass on the back side. Both safeties came flying up and it was ‘DT’ (Demaryius Thomas) and I think Ike Taylor, one on one.”
(We see some of the things that a guy like WR Tyreek Hill is doing in Kansas City. He’s in the slot, he’s out wide, he’s in the backfield. Do you see that more as something that WR Jakeem Grant can bring to the table or RB Kenyan Drake?) – “Really both of them. We’ve experimented with Jakeem on a few things. But, for the most part we’ve tried to focus, keep his focus on the return game. Drake, we keep trying to do things with him. Sometimes we’ve had things in the game plan for both of those guys that haven’t got … (I) haven’t called it. We’ve worked on a lot of different things. We like the skill set that both of those guys bring. We feel like they’re dynamic with the ball in their hands. Sometimes it just doesn’t come up right in the game. The more plays you get within a game, the better chance you have of calling things like that. Lately, we’re leaning on Jay (Ajayi) and trying to get our three receivers rolling, and then Dion (Sims), he’ll have some game where he starts to making an impact, and ‘Q’ (MarQueis Gray) starts making … We just have a lot of guys that we’re trying to spread the ball around. Damien (Williams) makes a lot of plays for us. There are a lot of guys and one ball to go around, which is a good problem to have.”
