Adam Gase – November 27, 2017
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Monday, November 27, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Obviously losing five in a row and outscored by 115 this year, you spoke yesterday about players needing to do what they’re told. Unless you guys play really well the next five weeks, do you just basically need a bunch of new players, in your opinion?) – “No.”
(So the roster you think is pretty good as it is?) – “I like the guys that we have on the roster right now. I think there’s a lot of things that we can do better. I think these guys have done a good job of sticking together through a little bit of the adversity. Things haven’t always gone as we really planned and the good thing is these guys go back to work on Wednesday.”
(For these final five games do you talk playoffs or what is the, do you kind of turn to next season in evaluating the roster?) – “No, we’re going to focus on winning one game right now. We’re playing Denver this week. That’s all we’re worried about.”
(Is there clarity on RB Damien Williams status?) – “Right now we’ll keep evaluating. I look at it as day to day, knowing him. He’s tough and what he went through yesterday was very painful. I’m not sure many guys would bounce back as quickly as he does.”
(Can you enlighten us on the nature of the injury? Is it a separated shoulder?) – “I don’t want to get into all of the details. I just know he was in a lot pain during the game.”
(It was reported last week that DE William Hayes would be out an extended period. Do you expect him back this year playing for you guys?) – “I’m thinking that would be probably tough for him to do. We’re still kind of looking at the options, but I think we’re going to move forward soon. I’ll have probably more information for you guys later this week.”
(How did DE Charles Harris do with a little bit more work than usual? Obviously DE Terrence Fede picked up some snaps too?) – “I thought our guys did a lot of the things that we talked about doing. There’s a few things that we want to clean up. We were trying to put as much pressure as we could on him and rush him the right way. Tom (Brady) is very, very tough to get to. He does a great job of knowing when to get rid of the ball and (Patriots Offensive Coordinator) Josh McDaniels does a great job of using Tom’s talents to their advantage, as far as play calling goes, and has a great feel of when they need to get the ball out quick. He knows when they can hold onto it. It’s a tough matchup for anybody that plays those guys because they’ve been together for so long and they kind of have a great feel for each other. They execute what they’re doing extremely well.”
(QB Jay Cutler, is he still in concussion protocol?) – “We’ll have more clarity of that today – later today. So tomorrow, I’ll probably be able to have a better idea of what’s going on. I’m just not ready to say for sure yet.”
(Did you look more at the tape on the two picks that were directed at WR DeVante Parker? Do you think he could have done more in each instance, in either instance?) – “I think I just look at both of those of … I think the first one, he was just trying to give him a shot. They both feel like they could have done something a little different and then the last one, he was throwing it into the wind. It wasn’t really a great situation for Matt (Moore) to be in. He gave him a chance but DeVante I don’t think quite picked it up. The ball was a little short. I mean it was the end of the game and we were just trying to see if we could get something, a chuck play there.”
(You obviously have had a lot success early in you coaching career in Denver and Chicago. You did good things last year, leading this team to a playoff spot. Not having success this year, has it made you introspective at all in terms of, ‘Is there something I could be doing differently?’ Has it left you puzzled at all because this is adversity after success?) – “Don’t forget about my first five years in Detroit. That wasn’t really that fun. You’re always going to look at yourself first and try to figure out all of the things you can do to help. Once you go through those stages and you try to really filter it out between the coaching staff and players, really that’s what the season’s all about is finding ways to get better, trying to use your strengths to your advantage and trying to avoid putting your players in poor positions with things that they’re not great at. That’s really the whole battle of the NFL. It’s not always going to go as smooth as you want it and you just have to be ready to adjust. You need your players to stay on board, keep focused, worry about one game at a time and not worry about the end result. You’ve got to focus on the process and keep trying to find ways to get better.”
(Back to running back, with RB Damien Williams uncertain, do you anticipate getting another running back? I know RB De’Veon Smith is on the practice squad?) – “Yes, we’ll get through all of that tonight and probably have a better idea tomorrow. Obviously, we’re a little short-handed right now, so we’ll figure out what the best moves are for us going forward.”
(You are satisfied your players have stayed on board?) – “Yes, I think our guys have done a good job. They’ve been through a lot of different things this year and every day, when we come back to practice on Wednesday, you’re seeing guys that are really putting a lot of effort into practice to get better. You can tell. I’ve been through it before. I’ve watched it. I’ve seen when guys, when they quit. I’ve seen when guys don’t practice hard and basically throw their hands up and really don’t care, and you see those guys be eliminated from the NFL very quickly. I watch our guys in practice and I see the energy level, I see the way they try to execute, I see them in meetings. Guys are trying to do things right.”
(How difficult do you think this is to turn around?) – “Well, we need to focus on one game. There’s really nothing you can do more than that. It’s about going back to work. It’s about correcting the things we know we can correct. It’s about taking the non-talent things and making sure those are perfect and then when we get into a game, we have to carry that over from practice. When we play a team like we just did, that is going to do things at an extremely high level, we have to make sure that we’re on it and we do things right. This next week, we’re going to have a lot of different challenges that we’re going to end up going against in different areas and we’re going to have to figure out, ‘What’s the best way to play these guys?’ (We have to) do a good job in practice all week and then on Sunday, we have to go out there and execute.”
(What have you been seeing from CB Bobby McCain this year? He looks like he’s been developing rather well.) – “I thought last year, when Bobby became the starter, it was all about getting good at being in the right leverage and using his help to his advantage. Then when we went through that whole year, I think he was able to take the next step of, ‘How do I make the coverage tighter? How do I get hands on the ball? How do I put myself in the right position?’ I see a guy that’s trying to play the right style of football for that position. He does a good job of sticking his nose in there when he has to in the run game. He’s staying tight on coverage. There’s not a lot of balls completed on him. He’s getting his hands on balls. I think he’s playing extremely confident right now and he’s been one of our most consistent guys on defense.”
(Do you believe the whole concept of winning culture is just a BS cliché or do you think that there’s something there because last year one was established. You guys during the course of nine wins in 10 games expected to win. Is that something you have to rebuild now after this losing streak or is a winning culture just a pile of nonsense?) – “I can’t say it is nonsense because I feel like I’ve been hearing that for as many years as I’ve been in the NFL. Really what you have to focus on is getting as many guys that have experienced adverse situations and can overcome things that happen during a game and during a season. That’s why I like a lot of the guys that we have on this team. Last year was a good testing ground for us because what you just said was basically what I was told when I got here. I felt like guys basically wiped the slate clean and didn’t believe in that and found ways to win games. We’ve put ourselves in some good positions this year, pulled a couple off and we’ve had a couple of chances in these last five games to win some games and it just didn’t go our way. A lot of those were self-inflicted. That’s what gives me confidence that we can get things going in the right direction.”
(As it stands, RB Kenyan Drake is the lone tailback. What do you need to see from him going forward throughout the remainder of the season?) – “I think we need to clean some things up – the ball security, for one. I look at that fumble and it was completely avoidable and he knows it. I think he takes a lot of pride in what he does. He wants to be what we expect him to be, which is a guy that can help us move the chains in the run game, be extremely effective in the pass game and knows what to do in protection. He’s a second-year player and we need him to come along as quickly as possible. The good thing is when he does get a crease and he hits one, it can be an explosive play. He’s one of those guys. The whole reason we drafted him was he came from a program that a lot of us in our building know who he was coached by and know the kind of work ethic that he had. We liked it and we felt like it fit our culture. We’ve just got to keep pushing him to get better every week.”
(Are you anticipating G/T Jermon Bushrod being able to practice this week?) – “I haven’t gotten to that part yet with the trainers.”
(The run defense has been allowing a lot of yards recently, I guess starting with Baltimore. Does this go beyond gap integrity?) – “No. I think we’ve had … You can’t say every game has been like that because two weeks ago it wasn’t like that. This last game, it’s a tough situation because you’re going to make sure you don’t get carved up in the passing game. Sometimes what happens is you get a little loose in the run game and one guy misses his assignment or one guy misses a tackle and then all of a sudden you’ve got an explosive play. Obviously there’s a couple things we have to clean up in that area from this last game. The good thing is we’ve got another opportunity next week.”
(There were a couple of the sacks that seem like it looked like the blitzer wasn’t picked up, like guys picking up the wrong guy. Is that an issue in communication?) – “No, we just didn’t do what we were supposed to do.”
(DE Cameron Wake seemed to be very active – one sack and I think five quarterback hits. What can you say about the effort that he gave?) – “I mean that’s what you’re going to get every week from him. I don’t think anything has changed in the last however many years he’s been here. I just know it’s been a long time. He’s high energy, high effort and he’s going to do everything he can to help the team. That’s the kind of guy you like having on your team.”
(You mentioned the self-inflicted issues. I know nobody is more frustrated about that than you. Are you any closer to putting your finger on why the penalties, turnovers and things like that are occurring?) – “Well the turnovers are … There’s going to be interceptions. When you throw the ball 40 times, it’s going to happen, especially because we were throwing some balls down the field. We tried to make sure that we put our guys in the best position possible and sometimes we’re being aggressive and try to let our guy make a play and it doesn’t work out. The fumbles, I always look at as those are always avoidable. It’s just about ball security. We keep working on it and keep trying to put ourselves in that position in practice. I think we made a huge emphasis on it last week. I know it was very annoying to all of the guys that had to carry the ball; but I felt like you could tell when you’re watching most of the tape, you see guys trying to do a good job as far as when they get in traffic, really getting two hands on it and making sure they hold onto the ball. The pre-snap penalties were really nonexistent this last game. That was a huge point of emphasis for us last week. We feel like some of the penalties we had in this last game, we could easily avoid and it goes back to fundamentals. We can’t have the post-snap penalty. We can’t have a hands to the face or holding (penalty). If we’re in the right position with our fundamentals, we’ll be alright.”
(RB Senorise Perry’s concussion, did the indecision on that kickoff return contribute? It appeared as though Senorise…) – “I can’t say. I just know it was two guys running really fast that collided. I just saw the tail end of that and that was a very violent collision.”
