Adam Gase – October 13, 2017
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Friday, October 13, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Is it safe to say WR DeVante Parker is out for Sunday?) – “No. We’ve got him listed as doubtful. Last year, it looked at a point where we didn’t think he was going to play in that Baltimore game. I never count him out after what he did last year.”
(What have you seen from WR DeVante Parker this season that’s different from past seasons?) – “I think he just has a good rhythm of how to practice, how to prepare, how to get ready. When you’re a bigger guy, sometimes some of these smaller guys can just go out to practice, stretch a little bit and get going. He’s got to get loosened up and really have his body ready to go to really hit full stride there in individual, which that’s what we want. So he spends a little more time pre-practice to be able to play full speed in practice.”
(Last week you had to adjust on the fly with WR DeVante Parker out in the game. Does it help getting WR Leonte Carroo and WR Jakeem Grant a week full of reps?) – “Yes, absolutely. With those two, and you can throw (Kenyan) Drake in there too when Jay (Ajayi) doesn’t practice, just getting those guys as many reps as possible, getting them used to playing with the quarterback, it really helps those guys so much because they don’t feel like when they walk on the field they don’t get a rep in practice and all of a sudden they have to do it in a game. Being able to have as many reps as they’ve had this week is always going to be helpful for them.”
(How do routes change or play calls change when a guy fills in for another guy and he’s eight inches shorter?) – “It’s interesting. There’s some things that you just avoid and then there’s some things that you can still do the same thing. The quarterback’s really got to lower his target. It’s hard to see (Jakeem Grant) sometimes. There’ll be certain routes that we try not to do with him because you get a better feel … If you stand right behind the quarterback and you’re trying to see what he’s seeing, it’s tougher than you think because the line’s a bunch of big guys, a lot of them are extremely tall, and you’re trying to find those throwing lanes and all of the sudden you just see a little flash. It can get difficult sometimes.”
(How did WR Jakeem Grant play last week?) – “He did okay. I think it’s just one of those things where he was in a lot of plays that he’s never actually got a rep (of) before. The smallest mistake can get magnified. I think he learned a valuable lesson. I know he’s studying extremely hard. He does his own, I think him and (Leonte) Carroo go on their own and they almost do their own walk-throughs to go through the plays and talk through what each other would have. They’ve done an outstanding job of being consistent since the spring. Once they got past that first year and realized, ‘Okay, this is what it is to be a pro.’ I think Kenny (Stills) has really been the one that has guided those guys to make sure that they prepare week in and week out, and he really started helping them right after last season ended.”
(How do you reduce the completion percentage of opposing quarterbacks?) – “Try to stay as tight as you can. When you’ve got guys that can fit the ball into tight windows, it makes it very tough and when you do take away those throws, you have to be tight on their (receivers). Basically, I always say, what’s the quarterbacks out, whether it be the running back or the tight end? You’ve just got to try to stay as tight as possible. You’ve got to try to put extreme pressure on them and try to make him get the ball out when he doesn’t want to.”
(Has CB Cordrea Tankersley continued his steady progress since he went into the starting lineup?) – “Yes. He does a great job. He treats every day like a game. You can see a guy that really loves playing football, and it’s been fun to watch him work the last few weeks. I love his attitude. I love the fact that he thought we were all nuts for him not being out there sooner, which you love. I love the fact that (he’s got a) ‘Hey, it’s about time you guys put me in there’ kind of attitude. You talk about getting thrown into the fire, you’re going against Drew Brees and now, all of a sudden, Matt Ryan. It’s not one of those things where you’re playing small schools and then, all of the sudden, you get loosened up for conference play. Every week’s tough.”
(How uncommon was CB Cordrea Tankersley’s reaction to being put into the starting lineup, saying ‘It’s about time?’) – “I think a lot of guys wouldn’t be like that. They’d be like, ‘Okay,’ and just get ready; but he’s confident. That’s one of the things that we really liked about him was he didn’t care what anybody else thought. In his head, he feels like he’s one of the best guys on the field. At the end of the day, that’s what you want.”
(Is it likely that you’ll have the same group of defensive backs active?) – “We’ll have to look at that. We’re going to talk about that again today. We probably won’t make any hardcore decisions until tomorrow night. We’ll see how it kind of plays out for us.”
(On Sunday after the game, you said you scaled back the offense to help the group. Can you elaborate on that a little bit and what went into that decision?) – “Really the last couple weeks, we’ve been trying to figure out what’s worth having in and what’s really not important. Any time you find yourself a little bit out of rhythm or whatever you want to say it is, we haven’t been putting points on the board. We haven’t been playing well on third down. We really wanted to try to focus on things and make sure that we practice them and get multiple reps in practice with it and being able to walk through everything. Really at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is say, ‘We’re going to give our players the best chance possible in these situations and allow them to execute at a high speed.’ That’s what we’ve been trying to do. We’re trying to find the right formula for this group, because what we did last year is really, at the end of the day, it’s irrelevant. What works with Jay (Cutler) and the group that he’s out there with and the o-line? It is 11 guys that have got to do it together. We’ve just got to keep finding a way to put ourselves in third-and-manageable and see what happens. Right now, we have the same amount of snaps on third-and-11-plus as we do on third-and-1-to-6, that’s not a good thing. We’ve got to flip the script on that.”
(How would you describe S Nate Allen’s performance through four games?) – “I think he has been a solid, solid veteran player for us. He has done exactly what we’ve asked him to do. He has done a good job. I think there has only been one or two times where I felt like where he missed a tackle that I felt like he could’ve made. He has done a great job. The big thing for us is keep everything in front of you and when somebody gets to you, get them down. Give us another chance. He has embraced that role. Any time that you bring in a new player from a different organization or that has been around for a while, you’re always curious to see how he fits in, and he has done a great job of fitting in with the guys and then contributing with really the role we’ve asked him to do.”
(When you look at a guy like Falcons LB Vic Beasley, what type of challenges does he present to your offense?) – “Any time you have a guy that has extreme speed, you have to be very aware of him. And then you throw in the fact that he’s an extreme competitor. You may block him on the initial rush, but he’s going to keep coming. When you play a guy like that, you have to bring your A game, because until the whistle blows – and if you think it’s going to be one of those where you just tie up and you slow down, it’s not going to be like that. He’s not going to quit on the play. He’s going to keep coming. Really at the end of the day, that’s a Dan Quinn coached defense right there, because I’ve been watching it since 2013. It hasn’t changed. It’s something he instills in those guys to where it’s relentless pursuit for the entire game.”
(Most important thing against Falcons WR Julio Jones for those guys who will be covering him?) – “We’ll kind of see how that all plays out as far as what we want to do. I don’t want to give you exactly what we’re doing. There’s going to be multiple guys that are going to have to cover him at some point, because he’s not going to be in one spot, fire a flare and let everybody know where he’s at. Everybody has got to be ready. We’ve got to be great at our leverage. We’ve got to make sure we know where our help is. Guys are just going to have to be very sound in our coverages.”
(How similar of a defense is this to the one Dan Quinn had in Seattle?) – “He has evolved over time. It’s close. The attitude is the same. That’s the sign of a really good coach of somebody that goes from one place to the other. It’s about that swagger, the intensity, the speed they play with. It just carried over, just different guys.”
(Do you think WR Jakeem Grant should’ve caught the ball that Titans CB Adoree’ Jackson broke up?) – “That was a tough one. It looked like he kind of mistimed his jump at little bit. I’ve seen him jump higher than what he did. It was one of those situations where I called it and you’re thinking one thing and it kind of played out a little different than I thought. And then when I saw the ball go up the seam, I was like, ‘This’ll be interesting.’ The ball looked like it came out pretty high. It was a good job. Jay (Cutler) put it in a pretty good spot to where they couldn’t do anything about it. I think if Jakeem times his jump a little different, we might’ve been able to pull that one in.”
