Adam Gase – June 9, 2016
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Thursday, June 9, 2016
Head Coach Adam Gase
(On evaluating the undrafted players) – “It’s hard right now. I don’t want to single somebody out, because I think all the guys are working hard. They’re trying to learn the schemes. It’s a lot of information in a short period of time. You come in, you’re behind. Between offense, defense and then you throw special teams in the mix, they’re swimming a little bit. But I think guys are doing a good job of staying caught up and trying to play fast to the best of their ability. But the whole group has done a good job of really focusing in on what their job is.”
(On this week’s OTA practices) – “It was good. We did a lot of situational work. Almost every period had some kind of theme, whether it was (Defensive Coordinator) Vance (Joseph), (Offensive Coordinator) Clyde (Christensen) and myself getting together and saying, ‘Here’s what we’re going to work on in this particular period.’ This is like one of those weeks where you can really focus on the details of things like four-minute backed up, two-minute (drills). There was a little bit of red zone thrown in there and third down. We did a lot of situational work this week.”
(On whether the players are as far along as he thought they would be) – “They did a great job this week. When you got four days … They came out every day with a lot of energy. They focused on the day that we were working. They weren’t looking like (there was) light at the end of the tunnel (when) we’re almost done. They really did a great job as far as coming out, working every day and brought a great energy level.”
(On the 2015 draft class) – “I’ll say this, they got a lot of experience for young players. Anytime that you get game experience, that’s going to be valuable. The more we throw those guys out there – the more situations that we put them in – the quicker their development is going to be. We’re looking … I know we’ve been talking about this since the beginning, (but) we’re so young. We got a lot of guys with experience, but at the same time, it’s kind of a strange combination. The more we can get these situational (drills) in practice, that’s just going to help their development.”
(On the drawbacks of having a young team) – “I don’t know if there really is. It’s fun to be able to go out to practice. Basically, if a guy is not hurt, you’re not worried about really taking it easy on guys and watching how many reps that we have, because almost everybody is under 25 years old. They can run all day. Guys don’t get … They seem to recover a lot faster. That’s the positive. It really is … It’s helpful when you’re practicing, because you got numbers.”
(On WR Jarvis Landry as a leader despite going into his third year) – “Not just him, but I feel like almost every room is like that. But he has done a good job. With him, he is really a leader by example for the most part. Everything he does, you can tell how much he cares about what his job is. If he can help another guy – usually some of the young guys – he’ll lend a hand. But for the most part, right now, he’s trying to make sure he’s right on what he has to do. When you’re this early in our process, as far as before training camp, you’re trying to make sure you’re right before you can really start helping other people.”
(On whether WR Jarvis Landry has another playing level he can reach) – “I think he will go to another level once he really gets a great grasp of what we’re doing, because we got him going all over the place working inside, outside. There are a lot of things that we do with him. He’s really trying to focus on that right now, but I do think there’s going to be another level he can take it to once we hit training camp.”
(On WR Jarvis Landry being a leader for the wide receiver group) – “Besides him, you got Kenny (Stills) in that room as well. And I know he’s young, but he’s really taking a leadership-type role there with the offense as well, because he knows this offense inside and out. He spent a lot of time on this. He seems like the one guy that knows what you’re supposed to do. He does it right, a lot. He’s able to lend more of a hand, because his focus is a little smaller than what Jarvis’ is. I feel like we have two guys in that room that are really our leaders in that group – not only on the offense, but (in) that group as well.”
(On whether he noticed a difference in the player’s performance because Chairman of the Board/Managing General Partner Stephen Ross attended today’s practice) – “I didn’t notice a difference in how our players were. (Mr. Ross) has been back and forth since I’ve gotten here. Anytime he comes into town, we’re able to get together and talk and give the updates on what’s going on. There’s a lot of phone conversations that go on every week between Mr. Ross, (Executive Vice President of Football Operations) Mike (Tannenbaum), (General Manager) Chris (Grier), myself. There’s a lot of communication going on. He has a lot of stuff going on in New York, but he has been down here more often than what people probably realize. He spends a lot of time with us constantly being updated on what we’re doing.”
(On whether he has been given any indication that S Reshad Jones will attend mandatory minicamp) – “I haven’t.”
(On whether he knows if S Reshad Jones will attend mandatory minicamp next week) – “I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”
(On the importance of practicing situational drills) – “For me, a lot of things that I learned were from (New England Patriots Offensive Coordinator) Josh McDaniels. Obviously, he was coming from New England at the time. I felt like that was very helpful in my development as a position coach. And then getting with Coach (Chicago Bears Head Coach John) Fox, we focused on something every day, whether it be something short or like a whole period. I guess being around two guys like that, that you learn from – and you go through those experiences – and then you’re able to come to a different place … Going to Chicago and getting around a guy like (Bears Defensive Coordinator) Vic Fangio, who was a great guy for me to talk to, because he was so smart (with) the way he thought about things and the ideas he brought to the table as far as, ‘Think about working on this and think about working on this.’ He would talk to me about a lot of stuff like that. That was something that I loved because it was things I never really thought of before. Coming here and being around (Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren) Rizzi and (Offensive Coordinator) Clyde (Christensen) and (Defensive Coordinator) Vance (Joseph) and (Linebackers Coach) Matt Burke, we talk a lot of situations. We keep saying, ‘What do we want to work on today?’ We’ll focus on something, and we try to make sure we educate the players, because you’d be surprised how many times you bring something up and somebody’ll say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that,’ and you start assuming something and that’s the worst thing you can do, because a lot of these guys, they’ve never heard some of this stuff. When you hear it for the first time, you probably screw it up in practice and then you make the correction. You want to try to make it to where when those situations come up on Sunday, you’re not coming back Monday and being like, ‘Alright, we need to do this.’ Instead, you’re ahead of that, you make the right play and you get the right result.”
(On whether CB Ifo Ekpre-Olomu suffered an injury setback) – “There wasn’t a setback. We’re just being careful with him. We want to make sure he feels as good as he can possibly feel going into camp. My thing is – and I keep telling him this – ‘You’ve already won.’ Everybody said he would never step on the field again. The fact that he participated in OTAs and practice, he won right there. Right now, he’s playing with house money. I think we’re going to see a guy that’s going to turn it loose in training camp. It is what it is. He was showing great signs. We were just being careful with him. We pulled him back the last couple weeks, and we want him to get ready for training camp.”
(On WR DeVante Parker’s foot has kept him out of practice) – “It’s not the foot.”
(On whether C/G Kraig Urbik’s experience works for him due to the team’s youth) – “I think it works for him. He has seen a lot of things. He has played a lot of different positions and roles on a team. Anytime you got a guy that’s flexible and he’s willing to learn … I feel like he’s really engaged. It’s something a little different than what he has done in the past. I think he’s enjoying the experience. We’re moving him all over the place. We’re giving him an opportunity, which there are a lot of guys we’re giving opportunities to right now. Really, it’s going to be about almost everybody in that group (asking), ‘What are you going to do with that opportunity? What are you going to do when you get the opportunity in the preseason and in training camp to show, put it on tape and see what your results are?’ We’ll figure out who the best five are going to be at the end of the day.”
(On how many positions have position battles going on such as CB Xavien Howard and CB Tony Lippett) – “You guys haven’t been out here every time, right? There has been select times where ‘X’ (Xavien Howard) has gone with the ones and gone against that first group and then ‘Lipp’ (Tony Lippett) will take turns. We’ve been moving those guys back and forth. We want to keep seeing those two guys going against different receivers. It’s a great evaluation, because our defensive staff is getting a good feel for our receivers. When those get those matchups, that helps the evaluation process. The longer that we’ve been going along with this, the better feel our defensive coaching staff is getting for, ‘He’s going against this guy. What does that mean?’ That evaluation process, it’s going to take time. The thing we’re excited for is those preseason games where we can see live game action where when you screw up, there’s nowhere to hide. In practice, it’s kind of like, ‘Oh, I got beat. No big deal.’ But in games, there’s nowhere to go. Everybody in the stadium is going to know you got beat.”
(On CB Tony Lippett’s transition from wide receiver to cornerback) – “He does a good job. Being a Michigan State guy, I’m always kind of giving him a hard time. I said a few things to him that bit me a little bit, and then he had two picks in a row, and he let me know about it. (laughter) But he has done a great job. That’s not an easy thing to be able to do. I love the fact that he’s so engaged in it. He’s competitive. He knows he has a fight on his hands. I don’t think he’s going to sit back and be like, ‘This guy was a second-round draft pick. You can have it.’ He’s fighting, because he wants to be on the field.”
(On when he would like to have starting positions established at a certain time) – “As long as we feel good about whatever we’re doing by the first game of the season, that’s all I really care about. You’d love it if you could walk into training camp and say, ‘Here are the 22 guys that are starting on both sides of the ball.’ I just don’t know how realistic that is. We’ll take that thing up to the first game if we have to. If something goes wrong during the season, we’ll make a change. But we’re going to find the best 11 on each side of the ball every week.”
