Adam Gase – October 10, 2016
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Monday, October 10, 2016
Head Coach Adam Gase
(On what happened with G/T Laremy Tunsil yesterday) – “From what I gathered, he slipped in the shower and when he fell, he jacked his ankle up. I don’t know how it actually happened. I know sometimes when something like that happens, you really don’t know exactly how you did it because you just know you’re in pain. And then I’m driving to the game – and I’m actually with our o-line coach (Chris Foerster) – he gets a phone call and I hear him talking on the phone and I’m kind of going, ‘Who is he talking to?’ And then I just (hear) ‘Alright, ‘L.T.’ (Laremy Tunsil), I’ll see you at the stadium.’ And I’m kind of like, ‘What just happened?’ Then I get a little bit of the details of what happened and then now it goes into, ‘What’s the next step?’ Once we found that out, everything kind of went in motion. Then it was more about how hurt is he? Because we didn’t know; he’s at the hotel. So we had to get him over there, x-ray him, all those type of things. I had to move on it quick as far as, ‘Okay, what’s our plan now?’ And make some adjustments and trying to reconfigure what we needed to do in the game.”
(On how hurt is G/T Laremy Tunsil) – “So we’re still kind of going through, as far as how long … or is it day-to-day? Week-to-week? Every day can be different, because once again, everybody heals differently. We’re just going to have to see. We’re going to see how he feels tomorrow. He feels a little bit better today. How’s he going to be tomorrow? How is he going to be Wednesday? Obviously the sooner that he gets back, the better for us.”
(On if G/T Laremy Tunsil was sober) – “He’s at the team hotel. It’s 8:30 in the morning or whatever. We got mandatory breakfast and then the guys drive to the game. I mean the guy was taking a shower and slipped. It’s not the first time I’ve seen something weird happen pregame. In 2009, I saw a guy slip in Cincinnati because they were putting sunblock on him and he had cleats on. (He) separates his shoulder and we already had the inactives in. It’s like one of those one-in-a-thousand, one-in-a-million type deals. When it happens, it’s a bad deal because when you talk about unexpected, that’s an unexpected thing that happened.”
(On if G/T Laremy Tunsil is on crutches) – “No. He’s walking.”
(On taking a shower four or five hours before a game and if that is fairly [normal]) – “He woke up. I took a shower before I came to the game. I jumped in the shower and got ready for the game and was heading over to the stadium.”
(On G/T Laremy Tunsil and if he was disheartened or frustrated) – “I’m sure it’s a cross between embarrassment and, ‘Really, I’m missing a game because of this?’ He knows him being out there makes us better. He’s a competitor and he knows we count on him being healthy and being a part of our offense.”
(On how much G/T Laremy Tunsil’s absence hurt) – “Any time you lose a starter, it doesn’t help you, and especially the way that we had practiced all week and kind of what we had going and planning and what we planned on doing during the game. All of a sudden two guys get thrown out of position that they weren’t expecting to play at.”
(On how far ahead of time did he know that T Branden Albert would not be able to go?) – “We pretty much made that decision … I think me and him starting texting, I want to say maybe Thursday, that he was kind of like, ‘Something’s not right. Something’s not right.’ Then as more texts came to me, then we realized there was no chance for us to get him out there. We couldn’t do that to him. I mean he lost 12 pounds. He looked – even Sunday – he still looked like he was drained. He couldn’t eat. So we just got to figure out and make sure that we get his strength back and get his weight back up.”
(On mono was ruled out for T Branden Albert) – “They did. They know what it was. They went through all those tests. I think there’s some kind of legal precedence that I can’t talk about it or something. We’ll go with that one.”
(On if other players came down with it) – “No. It’s nothing contagious.”
(On why G Billy Turner went to left tackle and not G/T Jermon Bushrod) – “The one thing about doing that is you don’t know unless you’ve actually had to do this, but (Bushrod’s) played right guard since he got here. And to throw him out at left tackle with no reps … it’s just something that, since we’ve been so deep as far as who would play left tackle. We felt like that gave us our best chance.”
(On G Dallas Thomas playing left guard and not C/G Anthony Steen) – “Well, Anthony (Steen) was up just in case. I mean originally when we heard this, I was going, alright, so (Anthony) Steen, I wasn’t even sure was going to be able to go on Sunday and I started making contingency plans in my brain of, alright, so if Dion (Sims) has to play tackle … That’s what I started thinking of because I thought we were going to have six linemen up. Then I went to the trainers and they were like, ‘If something really happened to where he had to go in the game, he can play it’s just he doesn’t have full strength.’ He hadn’t really leaned on guys to test it out to that extreme.”
(On how C Mike Pouncey did) – “Really well. Really well. It was like he was never gone.”
(On saying QB Ryan Tannehill is his quarterback for the rest of year and if quarterback is a different position for him) – “Well, I know when we have 18 drop-back passes and he’s hit or sacked on nine of them, and then the completions we do have, he’s got guys in his face. So I’m supposed to blame him for that? I get a look at the whole picture. I’m calling the plays. I know what it’s supposed to look like and it’s not looking like that right now as far as what’s going on around him. When we start cleaning some things up and we give him a chance to perform at the level that I think he’s going to perform … if he doesn’t do it, that’s one thing. But I need to see to where we get a chance in protection. We’re right on a lot of the other things that we’re supposed to be doing. Everybody is (saying), ‘Is he going to have mistakes?’ Yes, that last interception. I told him before he went out there, I was like, ‘When I call this play, you’re going to have to fit it in.’ He tries to fit it in and he gets jacked to the point where I thought he was going to get his rotator cuff blown out and his knee blown out. And then everybody gets pissed at him. Everybody wants to blame that position. It’s the easy one to do because you can see completion, incompletion, interception. When you hit your back foot and you get sacked, there’s not much you can do about it.”
(On if he feels he can make a decision on QB Ryan Tannehill after 16 games if protection stays like it is) – “I mean that’s so far away right now. I know everybody wants to rush to judgement. I mean we’re five games in. I know this. We’re going to go back to work on Wednesday and then we’re going to figure out a way to get better.”
(On how much protection can get cleaned up this week if you’re getting two guys on the left side back) – “That always helps. The closer we can get to that starting line, the better. Just keep tinkering. My biggest thing for me as a play caller is I have to find what do we do well and then try to emphasize that. There are times we’re doing certain things where I feel like that’s who we are starting to become, and then something will fall off and we have some kind of issue, whether it be protection or somebody running the wrong route or we make a wrong read. The biggest thing for us is we need to kind of separate ourselves as what type of team are we, as far as offensively. It’s been a little bit of a struggle for us. One, we just haven’t had enough plays to really kind emphasize anything.”
(On T Ja’Wuan James not playing good this year) – “To say he’s not good, I think that’s a little extreme. I would say this, if there’s … I don’t want to say 75 because we’re averaging like what 50 (plays per game)? But if there’s 50 plays in a game, he’s having 45 really good plays to where he’s doing things right and then we’re having five rough plays, or five bad plays. It’s just something (that) when you’re at tackle, those five bad plays really stick out. That’s the thing. I know we’ve changed some technique things that we were trying to do with the tackles and some guys, it takes to quicker than others. Some of the things that we’re trying to do with him are different than what he’s done in the past. It’s about sometimes trusting your coaching, trusting the scheme that we’re trying to do and selling out and being all in. Sometimes what happens is when you’re in the middle of the game and bullets are flying, you’re trying to just figure out a way to get the guy blocked. And then you go away from a certain technique, and it’s a group working together, that can put you in a bad spot. That’s what’s happening a couple of times. I know he’s trying to do it right. It’s just we need him to kind of pick up the pace of doing it right all the time.”
(On Titans OLB Derrick Morgan’s sack yesterday) – “He wasn’t the only one messed up on that. Everybody was. I mean, we’re running a slip screen and we’re totally wrong upfront. Everybody. Everybody’s wrong. That was just a full … that was a full bust by everybody.”
(On which units are making progress) – “The one thing I know I was encouraged about was the way that Jay (Ajayi) ran. Even when we had a couple miscues upfront where we had a free runner, he found a way to either make that guy miss or get us to the line of scrimmage. There were a couple times where he got 9 yards on nothing and he made it happen. The fact that I saw a guy that was not allowing somebody else’s mistake become his mistake, he was trying to make something happen. That was big for me. I told him today, I was like, ‘What you did yesterday was outstanding,’ as far as the way his ball security (was) in traffic, the way that he found a way to try to keep us ahead of the sticks. That was very encouraging for me. We did have (Mike) Pouncey being back. We had no issues upfront as far as communication with the Mike (linebacker) points. He played really well. But getting him back, we need to get a little bit of that chemistry going back. At some point, we’d like to get our starting five in there.”
(On whether he has thought about evaluating players from other teams) – “We do that … Every Monday, we come in and we end up having a meeting at night saying, ‘Is there anybody out there? Do we need to make any changes?’ We’re constantly having those discussions. I know (General Manager) Chris (Grier) and his guys in personnel, they’re always looking at other teams’ practice squads. When something comes up, it’s brought up in a discussion and we make the best decisions for us at the time. Every week changes. Every game is another evaluation stage for us (to) figure out where we’re at. Sometimes, injuries come us where guys go up and down on IR (Injured Reserve), PUP (Physically Unable to Perform) – things like that. Eventually, we’re going to have to make some changes, because we’re going to have these guys coming off of PUP.”
(On whether there was a mismatch between WR Jarvis Landry and a linebacker in the first series and what happened there) – “In that formation sometimes when you pressure, you end up getting receivers matched up on linebackers or safeties and things like that. For him, he wasn’t the primary on that one. His progression – if we would’ve been right on a progression – got off of what he wanted to do originally. The way they pressured us, we got some pressure in his face to where he had to get his eyes off it. (We) probably would’ve had a chance if we dump it down to Dion (Sims). Even though it’s under the sticks, we had a chance to run for it. That’s why it takes everybody. It’s not just one guy back there. (If) you lose vision on something – you don’t see what’s going on – all of a sudden you don’t convert.”
(On missed tackles and containing the edge) – “It was probably the worst we’ve had as far as missed tackles. I would think … The thing – for these guys – that ends up happening on defense is when you have missed tackles and then guys start trying to help themselves instead of staying with their assignment and cleaning those types of things up, now all of a sudden you got another guy out of his gap and then it creates another hole. When you got two guys like they have (DeMarco Murray and Derrick Henry), who have the ability to see a lot and they can make adjustments and a guy doesn’t fit right, they’re going to find where you screwed up and they’re going to expose you. That’s why you see an 8-, 15-yard run ripped off. That’s usually what happens. It’s hard to block everybody up perfect and find that hole and have an explosive play. A lot of times what happens is when you have explosive runs, it is because somebody misfit the run. We had way too much of that going on yesterday to where one guy is trying to do somebody else’s job to compensate for what happened earlier in the game. Like I said yesterday, it’s one guy putting a finger on the dam to stop the leak and then here comes another one and another one. You can’t do that and then be successful versus the run game, and that was the story of our game yesterday.”
(On how frustrating it is to not fit the runs with eight in the box) – “It’s frustrating for everybody, because you’re trying to take away what everybody knew what they were going to do. But it comes down to doing your assignment right, making sure that you’re fitting it correctly. As a coach, when you’re working on it as much as you do during the week, you want to make sure when you hit the game, you have to do it right. Right now, we’re at that stage where things are being fitted right in practice, and we have to transfer it to the game. It’s about performing under pressure. When the lights come on, we have to make sure that we’re translating practice to the game.”
(On who stood out on defense) – “We have some good, some bad, so it’s hard for me to say one guy who stood out, because we took our turns all over the place. I know Reshad (Jones) always seems to be a guy making a lot of plays, but he has his mistakes, too. But a lot of times his mistakes come from … When you’re at that position, you can gamble. When you’re a player of his caliber, you make that gamble and usually make the play. The problem is when he does miss, it’s usually … It could be really bad, but good thing for him he’s such a great player that he ends up making those plays.”
(On wanting to turn the pass rush loose) – “When you look at the situation that we’ve been in all these games is, the defense has so many plays. It’s one thing to stop the run, but it’s one thing to stop the run for 60 plays or 50 plays. It’s because they’re on the field as much as they are, because we’re not doing what we need to do on offense and we’re behind, so the other team is running the ball and our guys are getting pounded on, and it wears on those guys. Over time, it’s really going to affect us, because we built this thing to where, if we can stop the run early and we get ahead of them, all of a sudden you let those guys do what they do best, which I’d obviously love to see Cam (Wake) pass rush more. I’d love to see Mario (Williams) and (Ndamukong) Suh and ‘J.J.’ (Jason Jones) be able to rush the passer as much as possible. But when you’re down by 10 or 14 or seven (points) for most of the game, now that team is able to stay balanced. It doesn’t put us at our strength.”
(On how the defense can rush the passer more often) – “You keep moving pieces around. You keep trying to figure out a way or a different type of personnel grouping that we want to throw out there. We did it yesterday. We played some different fronts and defenses and had some different guys in there and played some different fronts, trying to find ways to slow down the run. We didn’t do a good job of fitting it up and making plays when we had chances to make plays. (When) we have a free runner through the hole, the defense is designed that way, we have to make the tackle. It really comes down to guys selling out and going fast through there and finishing the play.”
