Adam Gase – November 8, 2018
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Thursday, November 8, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Did T Ja’Wuan James and T Laremy Tunsil look any better today?) – “It’s going to look … They’re going to be sore and banged up until all of the way up until the game. It’s going to be about how much better do they feel closer to the game. When we hit like Saturday, that’s really where you’ve got to have an idea.”
(Was DE Charles Harris back at practice today and how big of a step was that?) – “Yeah, he was limited today. It seems like he’s made some really big strides here the last three days. I was surprised when I saw him moving around yesterday compared to watching him last week.”
(Do you have any memorable Green Bay visits?) – “Yeah, I have a couple of them. I’ve been there a couple of times and seen some interesting plays up there. Being up in there in Detroit and seeing Brett Favre play in extremely cold weather and hearing his balls … Basically when it hit the shoulder pads of the wide receivers, it was insane – cutting through the wind. It seemed like we always played there in December. Being up there with Chicago and playing the Thursday night game and winning for the first time, I think that was the first time (Jay) Cutler had won up there. So that was a good experience.”
(As an offensive coach, when you see QB Aaron Rodgers and his ability to scramble and do things that make him so elite, when you watch film of him…) – “It’s fun to watch when you’re not playing him. He’s a hard guy to defend. He makes it look … When I watch him play, it looks like he’s playing … it’s like a 7-on-7 walkthrough. He looks relaxed. He’s just flicking the ball and putting it wherever he wants. You can tell when he gets hot. When you watch that San Francisco game, those last like three throws he makes in that game, it doesn’t even look like he’s trying. Everybody else is going full speed and he’s kind of just putting it wherever he wants. He’s always going to be tough to defend. Even the older he gets, the more ball he sees, he’s going to find different ways to move the ball.”
(What’s the toughest challenge when you are playing QB Aaron Rodgers and there are those scramble ball situations, defensively?) – “The number one thing is if he gets anybody behind the defense, he can throw it a mile and it’s going to get there in a hurry. You have to try to keep everybody in front and when he gets loose, you have to pursue and try to put pressure on him to where he has to get rid of it. Then you really have to work that thing top down. You just can’t let anybody get behind you.”
(Can you clarify on T Ja’Wuan James and T Laremy Tunsil? Do you mean that you think they’re going to play but they’re going to have to play hurt basically?) – “Well, I’ve got to see how they’re going to feel on game day. They could get light years better in the next two days and they could be like, ‘I’m great. I’m ready to go.’ But it could not feel great and (they could) say they can’t go.”
(As of today are you planning on having T Ja’Wuan James and T Laremy Tunsil?) – “I don’t know. We’ve got every scenario covered whether we’ve got one, two (of them or) neither one. We’ll figure it out.”
(How much of what happened on Sunday with the defense is stuff that you can build on?) – “I think all of it. I think they did a good job of playing as a group – all three levels. That’s really the key. You’re playing team defense and that’s where turnovers can come, sacks, negative rushes, all of those types of things. All it takes is one guy to be wrong and that’s where an explosive play can occur. I think they can build on that and hopefully we’ll just keep getting better.”
(You talked Monday about communication between Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke and the players. What needs to improve there?) – “I think they’re good. Those guys … We got everything that we need to get straightened out with all of us completely knocked out, moved on. I think sometimes you have to go through all of this kind of stuff during a season and that’s what happens. The only difference between what happens a lot of times in the league and sometimes it gets aired out publicly, that’s the hardest thing about the NFL sometimes. You have to bounce back. We’re all moving on. We got what we needed fixed and (we’re) moving on to the next game.”
(How would you describe in general the communication that you want to occur both ways – coach to player and player to coach – in general what you want to see and hear?) – “That’s been great. Over the last three years, I feel like players aren’t afraid to talk to coaches. Coaches aren’t afraid to be honest with players. I feel like that’s always been really good. We’ve never had any issues. Whatever Sunday was just … It wasn’t a fun experience to go through. It’s over and we’re moving on from it.”
(Obviously there were breakdowns in the Houston game because players were freelancing. Have you guys addressed freelancing with S Reshad Jones, who has pretty much had a license to freelance during his career here?) – “I don’t want to say it’s all freelancing. Some of it is we had some issues with tackling – our open-field tackling stuff. We were letting guys get on the safeties too fast to where now there is a lot of green grass to defend versus more athletic players. Really, that’s where our biggest concern was. How do we prevent that from happening to where we’re one on one with a whole bunch of two-way go’s for the safety. Because really, your chances of those guys getting a back or a receiver down are tough. That’s the biggest thing we wanted to address was making sure those guys aren’t getting free runs on our safeties. It’s more about gaps (and) everybody being on the same page where d-tackle, linebacker, those guys are fitting everything right so we don’t have those kind of issues down the field.”
(Maybe along those lines, a message coaches often tell players is ‘Do your job.’ And LB Jerome Baker said yesterday that’s harder than it seems because your instincts tell you to try to do more. Is that a tough message to get across to players?) – “I don’t think it’s a tough message to get across. It’s just when the game is going on and things are happening extremely fast, you can … To me, I always look at it as on defense, it’s really hard because whatever they’ve shown on tape, they’re probably not going to do exactly what they just did. So really, you’re going to see stuff that you haven’t practiced against. It’s all reaction and instincts, things like that. If you do the wrong thing and it can hurt somebody else, and sometimes you think you’re doing the right thing. It’s just there’s a lot of moving parts when it comes to defense.”
(How has RB Kenyan Drake’s playmaking ability and versatility helped you guys in the passing game, especially with WR Albert Wilson being out?) – “Well, you can move him around. He can come from the backfield, he can be out wide, he can be in one of the slot positions. I think he has variety. It’s really about getting the ball in his hands. It seems like lately, I’m getting the check made, I’m calling plays for him and then they’re running the right coverage to not allow him to get the ball. We just have to keep finding ways to just get it in his hands whether it’s running the ball, getting it quick, down the field. However we do it, we just have to find way to get him the ball.”
(Obviously the offense has been evolving a little bit with QB Brock Osweiler as the quarterback, but six points can’t be a pleasant experience. How do you address getting more points, especially weeks like this where you’re going to have to score a lot of points against Green Bay, we assume.) – “We just have to hit the plays that are there. It might be two opportunities. It might be three. It might be five. Whatever they are, when we have the right play versus the right coverage and we’ve got a guy open, we have to hit him. Or we have to be in the right spot. Last week there were minimal opportunities but there were a couple there. It’s like all it takes is one sometimes and then it changes and goes in a different direction. Then something else opens up because they start changing what they’re doing. But when a team can just keep doing the same thing because they feel like they’re having success, that’s when it gets frustrating because you know what’s coming and we’re not getting what we need. We’re not getting the production of what we need. It’s about all of those guys being on the same page, protecting, making sure we’re in the right spot, getting the ball out. All of those things, really that’s where it starts getting … to where you notice it like ‘We’re hurting here up front. Now we didn’t do this right. We didn’t do this right.’ It makes a big difference.”
(Every team will have conflicts between coaches and players. We’ve gone through the list in the last few years. Do you have a red line when it comes to players? Is it the body of work? At some point you’ve just had enough? What is it with you that some instances you seem to be okay with and some you’re not.) – “I don’t know. I never thought of it like that. I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer really for that one. Ask (Executive Vice President of Football Operations Mike) Tannenbaum at the end of the year. He’ll tell you.”
(Do you have any feelings one way or the other about your next two games being moved from 1 p.m. to 4:25 p.m.?) – “No. I don’t care. Whatever. When they tell us to play, we’ll play.”
(With third downs, when you were talking about the offense, you were speaking about big plays I assume, in terms of hitting those five plays. But third downs just continue to be an issue. I know you’ve talked about staying on schedule with the offense but that doesn’t even seem to be working as well.) – “Well we had a lot of third-and-5 or less last game. I think we had three third-and-1s and we missed two of them. That just can’t happen. We’ve got to be able to … One, we don’t even have a chance to throw the ball and the other one we just get crushed trying to run the ball. We’ve got to find a way when we get into third-and-5 or less. I disagree with you. We’ve been staying on track pretty good. We’ve been third-and-5 or less pretty much. We just have to make sure that we get protected or if we’re running the ball, we get guys covered up (and) give Frank (Gore) or Kenyan (Drake) a chance to get the first. Because really, that’s all it takes. If you get a hat on a hat and Frank is back there on a third-and-1 situation, we’re probably going to get it. If we can just do a better job of making sure we give those guys a chance early in the down, we’ll get first downs.”
