Adam Gase – October 4, 2017 (Conference Call)
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Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase (Conference Call with Tennessee Media)
(Three games in, what do you like that you’re seeing from your team and what are some areas you need to improve in?) – “I like what I’m seeing from our defense and our special teams. I think our defense has improved with really what our main focus was, which was our run defense. We’ve had probably some better games lately – I guess we’ve only played three, so the last two games have been better – as far as our pass defense. The first game we played a little too loose and (Chargers QB Philip) Rivers was able to do what he wanted to do. (We) really didn’t help our defensive line out. (On) special teams, we’ve had some impactful plays. We’re looking for more from that group. We invest a lot in that and spend a lot of time on and a lot of our roster on that area. Obviously, we want to be one of the top special teams in the league. Offensively, we’ve been terrible and we’ve got a lot of room to improve, to say the least.”
(What’s the problem on offense?) – “Really, at the end of the day, it just comes down to every guy doing his job. We haven’t been consistent in doing that. We’ve had too many breakdowns, whether it be mentally or physical. We’ve got a lot to clean up. This week it doesn’t get any easier for us, so we need to be on our game.”
(Have there been any positives that you can take away from the offense thus far?) – “I think that first game was really more what we were looking for. It was a shortened game. There were very few possessions. I think we had eight drives. We scored on five of them. We ended up kicking field goals mostly. We scored one touchdown, but we had two other opportunities for touchdowns that we missed out on with running a gadget play – we had what we wanted and didn’t hit it – and then Jay (Cutler) missed Jarvis (Landry) for a touchdown. That game could have been completely different for us, and really the last two games, we really haven’t had that same consistency. We’ve had a drive here and there; but, for the most part, we’ve got to get back to more of what we were doing in that first game.”
(How is QB Jay Cutler, overall? He’ll obviously get better in time, but what do you like that you’ve seen from him so far?) – “I think the fact that even though we’ve been, really it was one year being apart, you can tell when a guy gets older, he sees things from a different lens. I think the fact that he was out of the game there for a minute, I think that makes you enjoy your time getting back into football, especially when you enjoy the environment that you are (in). The way that I’ve seen him practice and how into it he’s been with everything, I think it’s been really fun for me to see that he’s enjoying playing football. Really, we’ve just got to keep trying to get on the same page and getting guys to do things right. He’s been a big help with that because he has experience in this offense. He knows my personality, he knows how to deal with me good and bad, and knows how to communicate with the other guys.”
(With you facing the Titans, obviously there’s a question mark about the quarterback. Are you preparing for QB Marcus Mariota or are you preparing for QB Matt Cassel, and how does that look in practice?) – “That’s the toughest thing when there’s an unknown here, especially with the differences in the two. You can’t just re-design a whole offense, but at the same time, if Marcus plays, it’s really an emphasis on one thing. If Matt plays, it probably changes for them. Marcus causes a lot of problems. Really it starts with him and then you look at the pieces that he has around him, it makes it very difficult to defend. You have to be very sound. One little slip up, and then next thing you know, he’s running for a 40-yard touchdown or you’re accounting for him and then when you’ve got two backs the way that they have, all of a sudden you’ve got two big guys running around free in the secondary and that causes another set of issues.”
(What is the biggest difficulty, obviously playing in London this past Sunday, having to play the following Sunday without a bye?) – “I don’t know if, really, it’s hit us that we were in London last week, because I think most of our team was pretty angry with what happened over there. Once we got back over here, like today feels normal for me, as far as how the players look, how they’ve been moving around. In the meetings, I don’t see anybody sluggish. I don’t think that our veteran players are allowing anybody to be sluggish because there’s probably a little anger there with how we performed last week, especially on the offensive side and there’s a sense of urgency there of, ‘Alright, we’ve had enough of the mental busts and the physical errors.’ It’s either get it done or we’ve got to get somebody else in there.”
(How much do you not allow your players to make excuses? You guys have been to L.A., you’ve been to New York, you’ve been to London, probably had to log the most miles of anybody. I know that can’t be an excuse. If you here any whisper of that, do you squash it?) – “I don’t think they’re going to say that around me because I really don’t care.”
(Your team, are they pretty fresh for Week 4 despite all of the travel?) – “We don’t have a choice. These guys, if they do it right, they take care of their bodies, they listen to the people we have in this building that are telling them exactly how they need to eat, sleep, hydrate – those types of things – activate their bodies, how they work out, all of those things, if they listen to the people we have in this building, they’ll feel good on Sunday. If you don’t pay attention to that and you’ve got other things going on in your life, then there’s a chance that you’re not going to feel as good as the guys doing it right.”
(Which defense are do you expect to face and prepare for with the Titans? The unit that we saw against Jacksonville and Seattle or the performance against Houston that kind of showed some areas that can be attacked?) – “In my experience against this team, obviously last year wasn’t a great one. They’ve got a lot of good players. They’re very difficult to play because of that front they have. They added some pieces there on the back end. My experience with guys like Wesley (Woodyard) being in that linebacking corps, he knows my offense probably as good as anyone. He might know it better than some of my players. It’s a tough challenge. Getting these guys blocked to begin with is not an easy task. Then when you put Coach (Defensive Coordinator Dick) LeBeau on the other side, he always is going to have a tough scheme to go against. It’s a challenge for us. Last week was last week. Nobody will remember it if they come out and really do what they probably expect they can do against us. Every week is a different story so whatever happened last week, just like us, you go in, you correct it, and you move on to the next one.”
