Adam Gase – November 20, 2017
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Monday, November 20, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Is there any update on QB Jay Cutler?) – “He’s in the concussion protocol. That’s really all I can say. It’s in the hands of all that, that whole process.”
(Do you have any feel for whether QB Jay Cutler might be able to go this weekend?) – “I have no idea.”
(Has QB Jay Cutler expressed any concern about continuing to play at all?) – “I haven’t talked to him.”
(Any update on G/T Jermon Bushrod’s foot?) – “I don’t. I don’t have an update on that. I still haven’t met with the trainers yet. That’s something I’ll do this afternoon (and) kind of get everything sorted out. ‘Who’s available? Who’s not?’ I’m not really sure how bad either one of them is right now.”
(If QB Jay Cutler is healthy, is he your quarterback Sunday?) – “Obviously, with him being in the concussion protocol, I don’t know how long this will be. I mean Jay’s really done everything I’ve asked him to do and there’s no reason for me to say he’s not.”
(So 17 penalties in the game. That’s got to be a little vexing to coach. What can be done to not let that happen?) – “Yes, I mean it’s correctable. It was disappointing that it really increased when we kind of made the switch at halftime. For whatever reason, we got a little out of sorts, as far as what was going on with the cadence, which is something we can easily correct. We try to do the best we can to make sure that all the quarterbacks really use the same cadence Jay (Cutler) does, because each guy can have a little bit different rhythm, and that can throw a couple of things off. Not to the extent that … I’ve never seen it to the extent I saw yesterday, which that’s pretty obvious. Some of the other calls that occurred, some of the holding calls, it’s just going back to fundamentals and just doing those little details individual, making sure that we’re doing them clean in practice, just kind of our hand placement, feet, understanding what we’re doing in the protections, who has help, how to use it. I think some of those calls, we end up putting ourselves in poor position and that’s when we get those calls. The way for us to clean it up is to make sure that we’re doing all the little details right in practice. We really try to put an emphasis on the pre-snap stuff last week. We hadn’t had it that bad. Now over the season, it’s tallied up to be not very good. That’s why for us to really put an emphasis on that, we felt like the total number was getting ridiculous. It has to start in practice. We have to be better there and if we do it right in practice, that gives us the best opportunity to do it in the game; but that’s very fixable. All of these things are very fixable and it’s just about making sure that we do it right in practice and carry it over to Sunday.”
(What role did WR DeVante Parker play in two of the interceptions? The one off his hands and then also I wasn’t sure what happened in the end zone?) – “I wish his route was a little bit cleaner in the one in the end zone; but I think it’s kind of like one of those things where I wish Jay (Cutler) would have thrown a little bit sooner. It was just probably the look we got in practice wasn’t exactly like that, but it was pretty close. We had the look we wanted. We’ve got to hook up on that and both of those guys can be a little better on that and then it’s unfortunate, usually DeVante’s been pretty reliable when it involves hitting him in the hands as far as catching it. That was just kind of how things were going for us at that moment, where it hits him right in the hands and it pops up and of course they’ve got a guy right there. I thought our defense responded fairly well to being thrown in some of those short fields. We’ve done a better job. I think after the Tennessee game, we talked about it a lot. We weren’t catching catchable balls and we were worst in the league, and we’ve really cut that thing in half. We’ve moved up to about 18 or 17 and we’ve been pretty good catching the ball both in practice and in games. You just wish we would have got that one.”
(You had the big run that popped for 69 yards early in the game and then, all of a sudden, so much then so little as the game went along. What was the turnaround?) – “Some of them, we had some runs called that we ended up flipping the ball outside, where we just had premier looks. Sometimes when you can take those short throws where you get Devante (Parker) or Jarvis (Landry) a chance to run with the ball and it’s one-on-one, I think we’ve got to take those. That’s why you can’t get caught up too much in attempts over carries and all of those types of things, because really, we’re calling runs in those situations. There were a couple of times where we had some opportunities and we just didn’t quite execute the run play as we practiced it. I think ‘93’ (Bucs DT Gerald McCoy) did cause us some problems. He was very disruptive yesterday and that shows why he’s one of the best ones in the league. We were trying to get four hands on him as much as possible, but you’re not quite sure where he’s always going to be. We tried to set it up the best we could to handle him, but he’s a tough player to go against.”
(Considering that QB Jay Cutler’s been knocked out of a game twice now and QB Matt Moore takes some hits, how do you evaluate, going forward, whether you need to dress three guys?) – “It’s a good question. You think about it. When there’s that much time left, it’s hard to be too protective, especially when you’re down. I think last year when it happened in the Arizona game, we were actually up and I was very cautious; but when you’re down, you just call it and you’re hoping for the best. I try not to say too much to Matt as far as, ‘Hey, be smart and don’t take any hits,’ because then that’s just one thing that he doesn’t really need to think about. It’s a tough position to be in when you get to your backup quarterback, when you really don’t have anything behind him. It’s always going to be a thought; but at the end of the day, we’ve just got to figure out what’s best for that week.”
(S T.J. McDonald seemed to have a few good run stops. What did you notice from him in the game?) – “One, his range always is going to help us. He can cover a lot of ground when he’s in the back end. He makes us interchangeable at safety that he can come down and really fill in; really him and Reshad (Jones) can both play in the middle of the field and come down in the box and really stop the run. When (T.J.) hits somebody, he lets you know he’s there. It’s nice to have him out there. I think it really makes a difference when guys are doing the right things in the run game and everybody’s fitting it up right, and he’s the last line of defense really when he’s the unblocked the guy and he’s going to make the tackle, and he’s going to do it with some force.”
(How did LB Chase Allen do?) – “He did good. He’s a reliable guy. He knows what to do. The biggest thing for him is always going to be just playing time – experience. There’s always going to be one or two things in the game that he’s probably never seen before. They’ll do some creative things. Offenses, they’ll do one or two things where a lot of times when you watch the other side of the ball, being an offensive guy, you take a look at it and be like, ‘Oh, that was good.’ Guys in this league, they’re always searching for new things to try to do. It makes it tough when you’re a young player and you’ve never really seen some of these blocking schemes before.”
(Is LB Chase Allen your starter in the middle moving forward?) – “We’ll see how it is. I think, right now, we’re playing the guys that are available.”
(Early thoughts on going up to New England on Sunday.) – “I haven’t really gotten there. We’re still cleaning up this last game. I’ll probably be there a little bit more tonight, but we’re just going to have to prepare the right way this week and make sure that we focus on this game only. We can’t be looking ahead and wondering what everybody else is doing. That’s irrelevant to us. We have to focus on what we need to do to get better this week to make sure that we can clean up the things that we’ve talked about already today and give ourselves a chance. When we get to the fourth quarter, put ourselves in a position to where we’ve got a chance to either stop them or go ahead on some kind of drive at the end of the game.”
(You said last week you worked on a lot of pre-snap stuff. Why haven’t things necessarily translated from practice to the game on Sunday?) – “If I had that answer, we wouldn’t have pre-snap penalties. It is just one of those things where we have a change at quarterback and a couple things got a little out of control there with whether it be guys jumping or him and Mike (Pouncey) not being on the same page. That’s football. You’ve got to battle through that stuff. You’ve got to find ways to get better. You’ve got to find ways to fix it. Sometimes during a game, it’s tough to figure out … Everybody is trying to communicate to figure out why we’re going haywire there. This week, we have to do a better job of making sure that we’re on the same page. If we can clean some of these things up … We had a ridiculous amount of lost yardage, not just pre snap; but some of the other penalties we had. If we get some of these things cleaned up, we’ll put ourselves in better position.”
(What’s your confidence level in the ability to clean things up?) – “I know we’ve got workers. I know we’ve got guys that are going to go out on Wednesday and they’re going to work hard and make sure that they do everything they can to get these things fixed.”
(This is the second year of this offense. You’re the play caller. What is the identity of the Miami Dolphins on offense?) – “I think right now it’s, really, we’ve got to use those receivers to our strength. We have three guys that I have a lot of confidence in. I feel like some of the things that we’re doing where we can get to the backs in the passing game has really helped us. Yesterday, they did a good job of taking those guys away, but that’s why we were able to get so many chunk plays on the outside. If you give Kenny (Stills), DeVante (Parker) and Jarvis (Landry) one-on-one matchups, I feel really good about us being able to move the ball. If we can just clean up some of our turnovers and we can clean up our pre-snap penalties, I think that group is a tough group to stop. We have to be able to execute our run game a little bit better to where we can get those 4-, 6-, 12-yard runs. If we can get those two backs to the linebacker and safety level fairly clean, those guys can make you miss and hit some home runs.”
(What is missing with the run game? And how difficult has it been – this is the second straight year where you’ve had to change the offensive identity in season?) – “That’s what football is. It’s a constant change. You’re always going to see what you’re doing well and then you start adapting to that. The run game, last year we leaned on the outside zone so much. It worked out for us. It put us in some weird positions where we were getting third-and-long probably a little bit (too) much, because we had so many negative runs; but then we had so many explosive runs. So, it was kind of a feast or famine deal for us. This year, we’re being a little more consistent, at least staying ahead of the sticks a little bit more often. Now we’re starting to convert some of the third-and-longer situations. Guys have figured out a way to solidify the protection a little bit on these third-and-long situations to where we can push the ball down the field a little bit. If we can make sure we keep those efficiency runs going and then occasionally let those running backs get to the second level, that gives us a chance for some explosive plays.”
(How would you describe the challenge of turning things around this week against this team?) – “We can’t worry about who we’re playing. We’ve got to worry about getting ourselves better. We’ve got to worry about getting better during practice and cleaning up the things we need to clean up. If we’re going to worry about who we’re playing, where we’re playing – all those type of things … One of the things we talked about earlier in the season is it doesn’t really matter who we’re playing, it doesn’t matter where we’re playing. We’ve got to go through the week, make sure we prepare the right way, get ourselves ready, make sure we know what we’re doing. We’re going to understand what they’re doing. Then we have to do a good job of going out there Sunday and executing, and put ourselves in the right positon and take what we did Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and execute it on Sunday.”
