Adam Gase – November 21, 2018
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Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(We’ve seen a good chemistry develop between QB Ryan Tannehill and WR Kenny Stills over time. Is that the type of thing that excites you, to have them back to try to see whether that can get certain guys going that Ryan has had a good on-field rapport with?) – “I think it’s good that they’re both trending in the right direction as far as health-wise. Kenny, especially with the long speed he has and being able to run after catch. Those guys always seem to find a way to hook up down the field. We’ll kind of see how it plays out.”
(Today, what’s the o-line that you’re working with?) – “Whoever is available.”
(Who do you have in?) – “All of them. All of them practiced today except I think maybe Ted (Larsen) was limited. But we’re rotating guys in there and stuff.”
(So today it would have been C Jake Brendel at left guard?) – “It was a little bit today. We move those guys around a lot in practice because we want different guys taking center work and things like that. You’ve just got to be ready for all of that stuff because you’re only going to have seven (active offensive linemen) most of the time, so you have to have a good contingency plan if somebody goes down.”
(What have you seen from T Laremy Tunsil and T Ja’Wuan James when they responded the next day?) – “They seem to keep improving. I feel like both of them were good yesterday and then today it seemed like there was a lot of passing going on, so they’re working their sets a lot. They seem like they’re in better shape than what they were last week, I know that.”
(When you look at your difficulties in the red zone, is there a theme? I haven’t seen dropped passes or penalties or anything like that. Have you detected anything?) – “We’ve missed a couple of opportunities. We just have to get the ball to the right guy. It comes down to when we have our opportunities, we have to hit them. We just haven’t finished the plays the way we need to to get in the end zone.”
(Is there anything you guys can do … is this personal accountability? Execution?) – “We just have to make the play when it’s there, whether it be throw it, catch it, protect it (or) however it works out.”
(What makes Colts WR T.Y. Hilton so unique?) – “He’s really fast. He can stretch the field, which when you have a guy like that, that gets DBs a little nervous so they back off a little bit and make sure he doesn’t beat them over the top. Then all of a sudden he’s catching clean 20-yard routes and he can run after the catch. Any time you get a guy with speed like that, it puts a lot of stress on everybody else.”
(What’s been C Jake Brendel’s trajectory since he’s been here? Has there been a ton of improvement or is there something you look back on or a point where he really sold you guys on keeping him around?) – “I think a lot of it has to do with the longer he’s been around and the more he’s absorbed the offense, the faster and better he’s played. I do think he had a really good energy about him when he came back from that injury. I know that was a long time for him because he didn’t have a choice. He had to wait. I think he was chomping at the bit. He came back and he’s made everything count.”
(Is C Jake Brendel one of your smartest guys?) – “He’s probably up there. I don’t know. I haven’t really given out IQ tests or anything.”
(Are you planning on watching the NFL games tomorrow?) – “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
(When you think of some of the reasons that the team’s overall penalties have decreased this season…) – “I think we’ve been a little up and down. At the beginning of the year we were really low and then we hit like a really bad streak where we dropped down pretty far. It seems like it’s cleaned up a little bit lately. It’s really about just being consistent week in and week out. It all comes down to … That’s why we try to make a big emphasis on individual (periods). It’s fundamentals, technique, hand placement … Do the right things at the beginning of the play to make sure that you’re not putting yourself in a bad position.”
(With tight end snaps, we saw TE A.J. Derby finally healthy and play the most of the group last week. Are tight end snaps for you now mostly who is our best matchup against this particular opponent as opposed to who did well in practice that week? A combination of both?) – “I think some of it is situational. Some of it is moving those guys in and out. We’re trying to make sure we keep the run/pass fairly even. I know sometimes it can get tilted one way or the other. We have different packages for different guys. Some games, one guy’s package might get called more.”
(Colts QB Andrew Luck hasn’t been sacked in five straight games. What does that tell you about what’s going on there?) – “I think their o-line is playing really well. I think he’s doing a good job of getting the ball out. Receivers are doing a good job of getting open. It’s a group thing that occurs when you have a run like that going on. It can’t just be the quarterback. It can’t just be the line. It takes everybody to make sure that … If all of those guys do their job right and the quarterback gets the ball out, that’s when you have a streak like that.”
(Colts QB Andrew Luck for a long time was hurt for so long and now he looks like the Andrew Luck of old.) – “He looks like what I remember. I saw him play maybe like (his) second year (in the league). He’s tough. He can make every throw. He’s got good anticipation. His accuracy is really good. He’s a tough guy to … Him being healthy and the more he’s played, you can see the confidence is going up. Hopefully we just keep him in the pocket. The last thing I want to do is have him get his confidence back and start running around. That’s when it gets really frustrating.”
(With the way Colts QB Andrew Luck is playing and the points they’re putting up, can you guys afford to get into a shootout with them or are you going to have to find a way to hold them down?) – “If we get in a shootout, that means we scored a touchdown, which I’m all for. (laughter) It’s been a while. We need to do everything we can to play team football, so we’ve got to make sure we hold them to field goals if we get them in the red zone. We have to find a way. If we do get a turnover, we have to create points out of that on offense. We can’t let up anything on special teams. We have to be effective of being on the positive in special teams areas. We’ve been talking about it, especially the last couple of weeks, of we don’t have one side favored over the other. We have to play team football and we have to make sure that we’re doing a good job with the turnover margin. Our penalties need to stay down and we have to figure out a way to win the third-down battle.”
(Will you get a chance tomorrow to just take some time and enjoy Thanksgiving?) – “Probably not. They’re not here, so …”
(How did QB Ryan Tannehill respond before practice today and how did he do today?) – “He was good. The last two days, he’s been excited to get out there. I think he was really tired of watching. You can tell he’s fired up. Both days he’s been out there, he’s been excited to be out there.”
