Adam Gase – October 21, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Postgame – Detroit Lions
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Adam Gase
Coach, were you surprised enough with Detroit’s ability to run the ball successfully? I think RB Kerryon Johnson’s first two carries had 95 yards. They had like 138 rushing yards in the first half. I’m assuming that’s now what you expected?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: No. It wasn’t. We didn’t play very well against the run today. Basically they could do whatever they wanted on that side of the ball. It’s just kind of unusual for our guys. Usually when we have a drive like that, we respond the rest of the game and find a way to get off the field and kind of stop those type of drives.
I think they had one punt. They scored on every other drive, which, in your own backyard, not something you want to see?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: No, it’s not ideal. But we’ve got to find a way to match it on the other side of the ball and create more points.
Do you feel like your offense did enough?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: No, because we lost. We let a couple of drives get away from us. Ended up in third-and-long a couple of times that really put us in a bad position. The way that they are going to play on anything past third-and-10, it’s got to be the perfect call and we’ve got to execute it the right way and they have got to kind of make a mistake.
How did you guys come out with WR Albert Wilson leaving the game?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I’m not sure yet but there’s a lot of guys at the end of the game who were trying to make stuff up and figure out a way to get back in the game.
Is that only exacerbated by the short week?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I mean we’ll find out who is available. Once we know who is available, we just have to figure out who we are going to have personnel-group wise on that side of the ball.
Are there players who are playing hurt that might not have otherwise played if not for the fact that you were short numbers?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I think we were good as far as the guys that had missed time. They said they were ready to go and they wanted to be out there, so we felt good about it.
Why was WR DeVante Parker inactive?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: That’s what we decided to do this game and we had those four guys that had been kind of rolling together and we wanted to get (Kalen) Ballage up and he’s doing a lot on special teams, and we had some things in the red area for him and we were about ready to use him; but we were missing a couple of other pieces to it.
So was WR DeVante Parker healthy?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: He’s not completely healthy yet but we’re still working through some things.
I know you have to look at the tape, but when you looked at this game from the standpoint of what they were able to do, it looked like the receivers were open quite a bit, the tight end had caught one pass coming in had two touchdowns. It seemed like they were able to do what they wanted. What did you see defensively that allowed them to do that?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: We couldn’t stop them. That’s just what it was. They were executing better than us and we just didn’t do enough to affect the quarterback. It didn’t seem like he got out of rhythm. That was really the No. 1 thing we were talking about all week, and that guy, if you give him time and he doesn’t feel the pressure up front and we’re not tight enough in coverage, you’re going to have problems.
Do you look at this game as an opportunity lost, another team coming into your stadium and a good opportunity to knock them off?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: Any time that we’re playing at home, and we don’t win, that’s something that … that’s not something that we’re going to accept. We expect to win our home games and we didn’t get it done today.
Quick turnaround Thursday, they’re always tough. It seemed like every time you turned around somebody was limping off the field. You lost WR Kenny Stills at the end of the game. Try to get ready as fast as you can but how do you do that?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: We’ll find out what’s going on with injuries (and) see who’s available. We had enough healthy guys on the inactive (list) that A.J. (Derby) was close to coming back. We’ll figure something out. It’s going to be a short week but at the same time, we’ll have enough guys to be ready to go.
Is QB Ryan Tannehill close enough where he might come back Thursday?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: I don’t know yet because we haven’t gotten that far yet. I was worried about today.
What were your thoughts on QB Brock Osweiler?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: He was … I thought he played good. A lot of times, those sacks, one of them, he probably could have avoided but the rest of those, it was so fast. He didn’t really have a chance to defend himself. I thought he did a good job of what we asked him to do. It was just kind of one of those things where we can’t put ourselves in third-and-long. We had to stay ahead of the sticks and we didn’t do a good enough job there.
Today was the second time that WR Kenny Stills collided with someone when he was scoring a touchdown … is that something you will address with somebody or is that a concern for you?
HEAD COACH ADAM GASE: Not really. I didn’t think the last time … That was kind of an unusual situation, the ball he caught there. Every stadium is like that where that can happen.
