Adam Gase – October 31, 2018
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Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Do you have anything on the quarterbacks for us?) – “Yeah, Ryan (Tannehill) will be out this week. Brock (Osweiler) will be starting.”
(Are you surprised that QB Ryan Tannehill hasn’t shown more to this point?) – “I think it’s just unpredictability. Some days it feels a lot better and some days he doesn’t feel as good. He’s throwing. We’ll just keep working through it, keep talking with the doctors and see if we can do anything else, anything more than what he’s doing, or if we need to do less. We just have to keep going through this process.”
(We didn’t see QB Ryan Tannehill throw anything out there today. Did he throw anything?) – “He has. I mean he’s been throwing when he’s with the trainers and they do certain things. He’s being monitored closely.”
(At this point, how much does the concern grow that this can be something that either needs to be surgically repaired or could possibly impact QB Ryan Tannehill’s career the rest of…) – “Surgery has not been brought up to me. This is just a rest-type thing.”
(What are the differences in the Jets team you’re going to see Sunday compared to the Jets team you saw earlier this year?) – “That’s a tough one in the aspect of when we play those guys, we’re going to get their A-game. We’re going to get a team that’s going to make sure that it is not easy sledding running the football. It never has been. In my short time here, every time we’ve played them, it’s been a physical game. (Jets Head Coach) Todd (Bowles) does a great job of getting those guys ready to go on defense. The quarterback (Sam Darnold) is getting better. He’s a young player. He’s seeing more and he’s learning the NFL game. There are some games where you see some really good flashes and then there are some games where you can see he’s fighting through a couple of things and I think (Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks) Jeremy (Bates) is doing a good job of trying to put him into position to keep getting better.”
(What do you hope LB Mike Hull brings?) – “He’s one of our leaders in special teams, for sure. He gives us more depth at linebacker as well. If something happens, we’ve got a guy that knows our stuff inside and out. He’s able to pop in there and he’s a really good relief pitcher when it comes to that, filling in for one of those guys. He makes a ton of plays on special teams. It seems like every game we walk out of there where he’s got two or three tackles and has some kind of impact play to swing field position.”
(What’s your impression of the Jets running game? There’s been a lot of inconsistency there.) – “I know when we played them, it was tough. Every play is a fight. It’s hard for me to look at too much in the past. I know scheme-wise we can, but I just know what we’re going to get (in terms of) when we get going on Sunday, it’s a different type of game. Both sides, it’s very intense. You throw the records out. You kind of throw what happened before that (out) because guys are coming to play.”
(Regarding your situation at defensive tackle, I know you signed a couple of guys. How tough is it to plug guys in at defensive tackle?) – “At that spot, it’s probably a little easier than some of the other spots because there are less moving parts, especially with two veteran guys. Our numbers dwindled very quickly. I think it was good by the front office guys to get those guys in quick and get them signed and get them out there practicing.”
(What did you see from the workouts that said ‘Okay, this is the right fit for us – DE Ziggy Hood and DT Sylvester Williams – as opposed to some other guys?’) – “Yeah, I mean I’ve been with Sly (Sylvester Williams) before in Denver, so I have some history there. Ziggy, everybody … It was unanimous as far as who those guys liked in the front office and who the staff liked. I felt really good about it just because it’s two guys that are run stoppers and do have value against the pass and have experience. It’s not like they haven’t played all year. They’re coming off of other teams. It’s been a couple weeks but it’s good to get some guys out there that are some fresh faces and see if we can get a little bit of a spark here.”
(With regard to QB Ryan Tannehill, what’s the term for the injury? What’s the injury?) – “I don’t know. I try not to dig too deep in it because I don’t want to get anything wrong with you guys.”
(Is there a sprain?) – “No. I don’t want to say sprain.”
(Are you just calling it a sore shoulder?) – “Yeah, I don’t know. I’ll ask more questions to find out for you. You can ask me tomorrow and I’ll have a better answer.”
(WR DeVante Parker, is he unlucky? An underachiever? Some of both?) – “I think unlucky is probably the word I would use as far as with the injuries. Especially him having a soft tissue injury, the amount of work that he had put in to make sure that didn’t happen, I know that was disappointing for him. When he fractured the finger, his hand got caught in Xavien (Howard)’s jersey and he tried to go up and it got snagged and twisted all around. In my time here, he’s tried to do everything possible to make sure that he’s ready to go. He’s done a good job of staying engaged when he wasn’t playing. I think it benefitted (him), the amount of work he put into the playbook this last game because he didn’t have to ask ‘What’s this?’ or ‘Where do I go here?’ He was playing fast. Hopefully we just keep getting better every week and seeing if we can just keep expanding his role to where he makes as many plays as possible per game.”
(And that game reinforces for you that for you to be in WR DeVante Parker’s corner is the right call?) – “Yeah. We had a good week of preparation. Anything that happened before that, we move on quick. If he has something to say to me, he’ll say it. He’s not afraid to tell me stuff and I appreciate that about him. If somebody else says something for him, he talked to me and then we moved on.”
(What’s WR Kenny Stills able to do right now?) – “He’s trying to work through his injury. We’ll see kind of how the rest of the week goes. Obviously you see he’s trying to convince us that he’s going to be ready. We just have to be smart. We don’t want to make it something to where we throw him out there and then all of a sudden we lose him for a longer period of time.”
(WR Kenny Stills’ issue is the leg? That’s the one that’s keeping him out?) – “Yeah, it was like a groin.”
(WR Kenny Stills also had a shoulder, I think.) – “Yeah, it was more the groin.”
(With the trade deadline yesterday, were there any situations where you thought you might be a little more active than you were?) – “No. We were good.”
(If WR Kenny Stills does not play, do you feel like you still have enough depth and experience at wide receiver to make it through the game?) – “Yeah, I thought those guys did a really good job last week. We saw some different things than what we anticipated and for not practicing – we just had walkthroughs and I don’t know what we were in but we just had walkthroughs – those guys adjusted well. (They) talked through things, did a good job of communicating coming back to the sideline and made some plays. We were probably inches away from busting a couple of those out. I think these guys just keep working out there and keep trying to find ways to get better. When Kenny is ready to go, that will be great to get another guy out there that can really help us stretch the field. Those guys have done a good job.”
(Outside of the penalties and the third-down issues, you’re averaging less than what the league averages in points. What’s the reasoning why midway through?) – “It’s probably not finishing in the red zone. We had a couple of shots this last game to put ourselves in … I think there were about three of them to where if we convert on a third-and-short, at least it keeps us alive for a touchdown. We have a third-and-4 where we have the ball in our hands and we don’t finish the play. When you have three of those, that’s going to hurt you. We probably had a couple of games where we weren’t down there enough and didn’t give ourselves a chance. At the end of the day, our job is to score one more point than whatever the opposing team scores.”
(In what area has T Laremy Tunsil improved the most this season?) – “Every area. I think it’s slowed down for him. I think his confidence is extremely high. I think he’s done a great job from the time we started in the spring. I think Josh (Sitton) coming in and working next to him had an effect on Laremy as far as watching how he would prepare every day in meetings and all of those little tiny things that a lot of people don’t see. I think Laremy was lucky to have somebody that he could kind of work with that was willing to help him and point him in the right direction. I see Laremy’s confidence right now as extremely high. I think the Cincinnati game was an eye-opener for him, probably how things kind of fell apart when he left the game. He can see how valuable he is. We’ve left him on an island on some good players here a couple of times in the last three or four weeks and he’s done a great job.”
(DE Robert Quinn was saying after the Houston game that this season has been a disappointment for him. Have you had to talk to him about dealing with that, or is he professional enough that you leave him on his own?) – “I know what he’s talking about. He’s really not one to complain. He’s always a guy that just works extremely hard at practice. He tries to do what the coaches ask him to do. I know that he wishes that he could get to the quarterback probably a few more times, but sometimes it’s not in his control if the offense is calling something to where the ball comes out quick. We’ve tried to set some things up and make sure maybe we can free him up to where (it cane be) a one-on-one battle. It doesn’t work out all the time. We’ve got a long ways to go. We’ve got eight games left. It’s just in the moment right there when you just get beat up pretty good in a game and nobody really had a great one. It’s frustrating in that moment.”
(Do you think DE Robert Quinn feels or felt pressure because DE Cameron Wake was slowed or missing that he needed to pick up?) – “I don’t know. I’ve never asked him that. I’m sure that he wanted to do something to try create havoc in the game.”
(With LB Mike Hull back, does that change RB Brandon Bolden’s role? And how in general has he been doing?) – “I don’t know how many roles it’s really going to change for us. We’ve got some pieces that we had to move around anyways. We’ll kind of see how that all plays out on Sunday. Who were you asking about? Bolden? He’s doing really well. He’s been a huge part of what we’re doing. He’s been the ultimate professional. I think he’s been a great influence on the entire locker room. Anybody that comes in contact with him, he just does everything right. If you’re a coach and you say something, if anybody even kind of looks at you weird, he’s the first one to be like, ‘No, he’s right. Trust me.’ He’s been through a lot. He’s played a lot of football. He’s played a lot of offense and he’s played a ton of special teams. His library of things that he’s gone through in his career is huge and I think a lot of guys lean on him to kind of point them in the right direction.”
(How was your defense today? What was kind of the spirit that they had coming in?) – “It was intense. It was intense. It was fast. It was physical. It was good. I thought guys did a good job of coming out … there was a focus there.”
(I know that teams want to get the ball out fast so that they limit the ends and stuff, but they do that to everybody. So if your two ends aren’t getting there, what are they not doing other than teams are getting the ball out?) – “A lot of times it’s taking a guy off the first progression, the quarterback off the first progression. That’s part of when I talk about front coverage working together, when a quarterback goes to throw that No. 1 guy in the progression, you take him away and now he has to go to No. 2, that’s most of the time when you get home if you’re dealing with a type of team that gets the ball off fairly quick. So you have to be able to take something away on the back end as well, or even at linebacker if you’re dealing with a team working the tight end or a running back. We’ve been talking about it basically since the last game … We have to work great together on all three levels. Right now, the last two games, we haven’t done a great job of back end working with the front and vice versa. That’s where we need to get things cleaned up. We have to do a better job of when they do get the ball out quick, we have to be tight coverage, don’t allow him to take the first progression, make him move to No. 2. Now we’ve got a chance to get home.”
(So in part what you’re saying is Cameron Wake and Robert Quinn, part of their problem is your cornerbacks?) – “We just have to do a better job in coverage. It’s not always the corners. That’s why I’m saying it’s a group thing because it’s not always going to be, ‘Hey, the corner is the one covering the first guy in the progression.’ If we’re throwing to (Kenyan) Drake, he’s covered probably by a linebacker or a safety. It’s the same thing with other teams. We just have to do a better job of being tight and making that guy go to No. 2.”
(There’s sort of a cliché that the best ability is availability in the game of football. What’s sort of your view on that given that you’ve had a lot of injuries this year?) – “Yeah, I mean, that’s always a good saying when nobody is getting hurt. When a lot of guys get hurt, then you start looking at everything. I know (Head Strength and Conditioning Coach) Dave (Puloka) has been thinking about it. ‘Hey, did we do something wrong in the offseason, training camp.’ And (Head Athletic Trainer) Kyle (Johnston). We’ve all been kind of talking about all the things that we’ve kind of done, whether it be stay the same, change something. ‘Hey, has that affected?’ We’ve just had some weird like season-ending-type things and it’s happening in games. We haven’t really lost a whole bunch of guys in practice. We’re losing guys in games. We’ll keep looking at that, try to keep guys as healthy as we can. To answer your question, availability is the No. 1 thing that you’re always looking for in the NFL because if you’re not on the field, you can’t really help us.”
