Adam Gase – November 14, 2017
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Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase
(After tape viewing, do you think effort was at all a question in the second half or do you think it was entirely an execution matter last night?) – “Really, effort is really hard to question with this group. They’re going to play hard. Sometimes the issue becomes other guys trying to cover for other guys – whether it be a mental mistake or guys just … Everybody starts trying to make a play and guys start getting out of their lanes, if you’re talking about defense, and then that’s where you see some of those big plays start occurring. Offensively, I just didn’t see that. I saw guys trying to find a way to get the ball in the end zone all the way to the end.”
(How do you turn this around?) – “Well, you know we’ve kind of taken our turns here on both sides of the ball. It would have been nice to start a little better early in the season. The defense probably wouldn’t have been on the field so much on offense and then now it’s kind of we’re flipping the script a little bit, which seems very similar to a little bit of what we did last year where our defense kind of got worn down there towards the end. We started having so many injuries that I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that they were playing so much football early in the season. This year, it’s kind of … We’ve stayed somewhat healthy. We just kind of lost our way just for a minute here and we just had to really re-group and get things back on track. It’s going to be about guys just really focusing on doing everything they can to prepare right, to practice right, and then when we hit Sunday, to execute the right way.”
(Now the losses you had in preseason can’t be understated. This is not to make excuses – obviously QB Ryan Tannehill, CB Tony Lippett, LB Raekwon McMillan, LB Koa Misi – all that being said, do you think that you and the front office might have overestimated how much talent you have on this year’s team off of 10-6 and off some free agent moves?) – “I don’t think so. I feel good about the group we have out there. We just have some things that we’ve got to clean up to where we don’t put ourselves in position to where games get out of hand. And that can happen in the NFL sometimes where an 8-minute stretch can all of a sudden make a close game just completely flip the switch, and we just have to do a better job of battling back when things don’t quite go as planned. At the end of the half, that’s a pretty tight game and we (have) a turnover, they get a touchdown, they get the ball back and get another touchdown, now all of sudden you go from having a 7-3 game to … It gets tougher when you’re going against the No. 1 defense when you put yourself behind by that much. We just have to find that way to play a little better complementary football. That’s really what we’ve been missing this year.”
(A couple of weeks ago you talked about players not necessarily retaining assignments because they weren’t studying them too much to begin with. Have you seen improvement in that regard?) – “Yes. Yes, especially on offense. I’ve seen a big difference and I see guys that not only are they doing a better job of knowing what to do, they’re doing a better job of executing it. There’s some plays here and there where I wish we’d be able to make, whether it be get a block made, get a throw made, get a catch made – be a little more detailed on a route; but a lot of times those are heat of the moment type actions that happens in. You’re not going to be 100 percent across the board every play as far as winning one-on-one battles. If that was the case, this game would be a lot easier. For the most part though, I do see guys that made big strides since a couple of weeks ago.”
(You guys have gotten off to bad starts going back to last year and now you’re averaging 4.3 points in the first half of games. What is it going to take for the offense to get off to a faster start or not put all the pressure into the second half?) – “I felt like we had a couple of good chances in the first half. We just didn’t get it done. That first drive we had where we get a third-down conversion and we get a good third-and-5, I think Jay (Cutler) had a chance to run it. He also saw Jarvis (Landry) with a lot of … He felt like there was a lot of green grass there and the ball sailed on him a little bit. Those plays, if we can figure out a way to just make that play, we’re at midfield or we got another first down, so we got another set of downs. If we can just get those one or two plays to stay on the field to give us a chance across the 50, I feel like we’ve been in pretty good shape when we get in the red zone. Our guys, they’re executing it really well. We just need to get the red zone more.”
(With the offense, last year you had more explosive plays. This year, you’ve gotten two good runs from RB Kenyan Drake; but where is the element of hitting teams with the big play?) – “Yes, that team last night, that’s a tough team to throw the ball down the field on. One, you’ve got a good rush. Two, they don’t play aggressive at corner. You’re going to get an occasional press here and there, but the percentages say they’re going to play off and they’re going to make you drive the field. That’s the history of that defense. They’re going to create pressure, blitz you and make you get the ball out quick. You can hold onto it, but you’re going to have third-and-12, third-and-15, and the whole goal for us last night was to make sure we were third-and-5 or less, and put ourselves in position to where we can convert on first down and keep drives alive. They were going to try to make you score through the goal line. They don’t give up a ton of big plays. That’s why they’re the No. 1 defense in football. If you want to push the ball down the field, you’re going to have a lot more bad results than you’re going to have good ones. The way you’ve got to play it is you’ve got to take what they give you and when you do get an opportunity, like Jay (Cutler) … We had a chance on a post. They were playing a coverage against a concept that we had and that’s what it afforded, and we missed it. Next thing we know, we’re third-and-10. You have to play what the defense is going to give you sometimes. You can try to force it, but you’re not going to have the results you want.”
(What common thread do you see on defense the last three weeks?) – “I think we’re probably overcompensating in certain spots where guys are trying to cover for other guys. It’s biting us a little bit, where we’ve just got to get back to the basics and fundamentals. Every guy do their job. That’s the hardest thing about defense is when you do have as many playmakers as we have, which we do – we have guys that are good in that front seven – and when things start getting a little leaky, somebody’s going to try to step up and make a play. That’s the good and part of defense. When you make the play it’s a good thing, and then you make the correction; but when they miss a play then it’s an explosive (play). We’ve just got to get back to guys doing their job, everybody staying on the same page and understanding that it takes 11 of them to do it right. It’s hard to have six, seven guys doing it right and then other guys just trying to make plays. We’ve got to just tighten it up and make sure our veteran players are doing a good job of being the guys that are the most consistent down in and down out.”
(You spoke after the Baltimore game about possibly personnel changes from within. Obviously, there’s not a lot out there on the waiver wire. Are you still considering that, because you have a few guys on the team, primarily young, who haven’t played a lot, or do you think these are the guys you’re going to go with that are playing now?) – “Yes, I think we’re always going to look at where everybody’s at physically, mentally, if somebody is not playing even close to the level we need them playing at and see if there’s any kind of adjustment you can make. The majority of the time, it’s hard because you only have so many guys. If we feel like there’s somewhere we need to make a move to make us better, we’ll do it; but I don’t really see us reaching to just do something to just drop a bomb on everybody. We’re looking for, ‘Who are the best 11 guys to play for that game, for that series, for that quarter, whatever it is to help us win?’”
(I know every game is important. Do you look at this right now as a crucial juncture of the season?) – “I think any time you get to this part of the season, really the games magnify. It’s hard to put an emphasis on one game over the other. I guess I’ve just had so many different seasons over the years where I’ve heard that, and then all of the sudden, something happens, it doesn’t go as planned and then, all of the sudden, you rattle off the rest of your games. So really, what we talked about was irrelevant. You just keep playing it one week at a time and trying to find a way to get better from the week before and clean things up and focus on that one game. If you start focusing on two, three, four games ahead of schedule, you’re just going to get in trouble. You’re occupying your mind with something you don’t have to worry about.”
(How would you assess the offensive line play last night?) – “There was a lot more good than bad. That was a tough front. That’s a tough front seven. That defense is playing about as well as you can play. That was probably one of our better games that we’ve actually played. We just couldn’t make the right play at the right time. I think I said that last night, where we need a third-down conversion on that first drive to keep us going. We’re in the position we want to be in, we’re third-and-5, and we don’t get it. It’s really going for both sides of the ball. When we need to have something to match the other side, we’re not getting it right now. If we get that figured out, then we’re going to see some different results.”
(With RB Kenyan Drake, two back-to-back weeks where he’s produced big runs. Is there any universal, underlying theme there in terms of what he’s doing right or what the offensive line is doing right or a different kind of run?) – “I think the guys knew on that particular play that he had this last game, where we made a big emphasis of if we got into that situation, they were very aggressive. We felt like we had seen enough on tape to where if we did get in that situation and got that play called, if we blocked that, that it was going to have a chance to get to the second level and it was going to be him and the safety. The guys blocked it really well and gave him a lot of room to get through that hole and it’s his job to make that safety miss. With his speed, it’s hard to figure out which direction he’s going to go. That was just one of those ones where everybody was just on high alert. They knew exactly what they were going to get. They knew they were going to get some form of pressure, they didn’t know exactly what it was going to be, but if everybody was on the right angles then we were going to have a shot for a big play. It was the same thing the week before. He had been saying the whole week when we were repping that play, he said, ‘I’m going to get to the secondary on this play, I know it.’ We ran it four or five times and when he finally did, it was a big play for us.”
(Do you think it will be a challenge this week to keep the group upbeat and engaged after three pretty dispiriting losses?) – “No, this group is pretty good at moving on. I think the coaching staff, too. That’s our job and we’ve got a lot of time left, a lot of ball left. I don’t know if you guys kind of pay attention to the rest of the league, but it’s not like anyone’s running away with anything. It’s a total disaster everywhere. Unless you’re … There’s about two teams where everybody is all happy. Everywhere else it’s misery.”
(What about CB Xavien Howard, with the game he had last night? What in his makeup would give you confidence that he can bounce back and forget some of the …?) – “(He’s) a short-term memory guy. He’s not going to worry about what happened on his last throw. I know the touchdown that they had, the last one, there’s not many guys that are going to defend that, because that was a really well-run route – the guy did a great job of keeping his speed – and that was as good of back shoulder fade as I’ve seen, because that thing was on a rope. That was the perfect throw, a perfect route and a well-executed play. To me, that’s the job of a corner. You’d better have short-term memory. If you’re not getting beat, you’re not playing. I mean it’s going to happen. It’s very rare you’re going to see corners that never have gotten beat. The best ones have. He’s a good player and he’s going to keep playing hard and he’s going to play tight coverage and when you’re a young player, as long as you don’t lose confidence, you’re eventually going to make those plays because you’re going to get more experience.”
