Adam Gase – September 12, 2016
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Monday, September 12, 2016
Head Coach Adam Gase
(On DE Mario Williams playing this week and DT Earl Mitchell’s calf) – “So with Mario (Williams), he’s in the (concussion) protocol. I have no clue after that. It’s all off us now and they have a system in place and they handle it. When the trainers come back us to us and say all these things are passed, they’re at this stage and then you can figure out where you’re at, at that point. Obviously there’s no timetable for these. Earl (Mitchell), right now we’re going to be week to week. I don’t know the exact issue. I mean I know it’s (his) calf but as far as if it is the same, I haven’t gotten all the updates, as far as that. They were going to get back with me as far as the details and all that stuff.”
(On C Mike Pouncey) – “So right now, it’s the same thing. It’s just week to week. I don’t know the details of exactly what he has. I didn’t really get into it. I’m just like tell me when he’s going to play and myself and Mike (Pouncey) have had numerous conversations of … I’m trying to make sure that we do what’s right for him and try to put the fact that we want him to be out there so bad because he is a great player and obviously he’s a great leader for us. But at the same time, I don’t want to put him at risk to where it’s longer than what it should be or it does something to where it affects us for the rest of the season. So we’re trying to be smart with it. I’m going to keep getting updated with the trainers. But at the end of the day, it’s going to be my decision when he should play.”
(On where RB Jay Ajayi’s currently stands) – “(Where does he) currently stand? I mean we’re back to basically … He’s back in meetings. He’s back in the building. We left him back. That was my decision and we’ve cleaned that up. We’ll move past that and basically this is a new day for him today.”
(On how restless he was on the flight last night and this morning) — “I think it took me a minute. Sometimes when you have that much time on the flight, you don’t try to, at least I didn’t, I didn’t jump into it right away. I kind of was walking around a lot. When you’re the play caller, let alone the head coach, you’re thinking about a lot of things that happened. You’re kind of trying to calm down a little bit. I mean it’s very, it’s like a mental chess (match). I mean you are really wired into the game and it takes a second to shut off. It takes, for myself, it takes me about an hour, two hours to just kind of settle down and then once we got going on the flight, I started watching the film and then just getting back here; I think it was like 4:15 (a.m.) we got back. I think I got home around 4:45-5:00 (a.m.) and then we jump right back into here and now we’re on to the next game.”
(On what the last touchdown drive told him about QB Ryan Tannehill) – “See I look at everything different. I’ve seen enough film to where I’ve seen him have drives at the end of the game. I think the Atlanta game in what, 2013? New England, 20… I’ve seen him do it before. I don’t know, I guess I see things different than what everybody else says. So I wasn’t surprised by it. I was mad at myself because I felt like I should have went, to what we ended up going to (on that drive), earlier in the game. But I kept talking myself out of it. And he kept pressing me to get to that, basically what set up that drive was some of those plays, he kept pressing me to get to that stuff and I kept talking myself out it and then finally, once I listened to him, then we marched the ball down the field. I mean it was a great lesson for me as far as, when he says to go to something, we’re going to go to it.”
(On what were some of the factors that contributed to Seattle having 29 more offensive plays than the Dolphins offense) – “Third down on offense. We left those guys out there way too much. Offensively, we put them in a bad position. Our defense did a great job. I mean, (our) third-down percentage was really high. (Our defense) did a good job of getting them off the field. We just gave them too many possessions. We really put our defense in a bad spot and the thing was they answered the bell. They did a great job. They held them to 12 points. I don’t know what else you could ask a defense to do than what they did. It was a tough situation we put them in at the end because they held on for so long and it was like, you lose Mario (Williams), Earl’s (Mitchell) out and now all of a sudden we’ve got limited guys chasing Russell (Wilson) around. It makes it tough. You get a 2-minute drive, that’s why you …. Look, 10, it really ended up being nine points on two 2-minute drives. That’s what makes him hard to defend. It’s because once he gets going and then he starts moving around, you get exhausted but you can’t come off the field. That’s why he has success in 2-minute drives.”
(On S Isa Abdul-Quddus’s performance) – “He did a great job. Obviously, the pick was huge. He made a lot of really good tackles. I thought the tackling overall was outstanding. We did not have … I don’t even know how many (missed tackles) we had. I know it was like one or two, maybe, tops. But the way our defense was running to the ball and just gang tackling. That needs to be our standard. That’s where our starting point is. We cannot go below what we did the other night because that was exactly what (Defensive Coordinator) Vance (Joseph) has been preaching since we started. Now that we finally actually have all of our starters out there … At least that’s why you don’t get too frustrated with the preseason. That’s what it’s supposed to be.”
(On the status of DT Jordan Phillips and his thoughts on his play) – “It was an ankle; but he just kept going out there and battling. Obviously he’ll have to stay on it as far as treating it. Wednesday will be really telling for us to see how he feels, whether he can go and practice. I don’t see him missing time but we’re just going to be smart with him. He did an outstanding job. He really came to play. Obviously he showed, a couple of times, how powerful he is by taking the center back, running him into the quarterback, then hitting the running back and the ball comes out. When you got a guy that can do that, that just shows you, ‘Hey, we need this as many times as possible.’”
(On going for it on fourth down) – “We got kind of caught in something that we had planned on doing. Ryan (Tannehill) saw something else but it’s one of those things that we’re trying to grow as an offense where you’re kind of sure or not sure. He had the right thought and then it was just kind of one of those things where he wasn’t sure how our guys would react and I put a lot of that on myself because I had a terrible formation for putting our tight ends in there. The (defensive) ends were able to crash down. We were just a little bit late off the snap and they got the angles and then Kam (Chancellor) made a good hit on Arian (Foster) to where he didn’t really see him, so instead of being able to go forward he got shot to the side.”
(On the message it sends going for it on fourth down) – “They just know we’re playing to win. That’s what we’re going to do. They’ll just get used to it. We’re going for it on fourth down. What did they do, go three-and-out in that next series? We got the ball back.”
(On CB Xavien Howard’s performance) – “He did well in a lot of areas. I know there were a couple of times that he probably wanted to be a little tighter on the coverage. I would say this, I was very impressed with the way he tackled and the way that he tried to deliver hits on guys. I think that was something that, I remember seeing him doing it fairly well in college but I don’t remember him being that aggressive. I mean he was really aggressive yesterday and there were a couple of hits that he had on some wide outs and running backs that was good for us to see. I mean that mentality of having a corner that does that, that’s great.”
(On if CB Xavien Howard needs to trust himself more on staying tighter) – “No. Sometimes what happens is formation dictates sometimes. And there were a few times I know he got caught, where they had a tighter split and there’s a lot of things that you have to make sure that you’re aware of, and it kind of softens you up and it’s really been dictated by the offense. I think if a guy splits out and he’s able to just get right over the top of the guy, that’s ideal for him. If he tightens down, then sometimes you got to do some different stuff. That’s why we keep looking into different techniques. How can we change things up? Different coverages. So we’re trying to put him in the best position possible, it’s just sometimes we might hit something that maybe we don’t have a great answer for at that time and develop from there.”
(On when things don’t go his way, how he regenerates that same excitement for next week) – “I don’t think this one’s going to be hard for us to get up for. We’ll be alright.”
(On if it was hard to gauge where he stands as far as pass blocking and running the ball) – “Well I think that’s the least I’ve ever had my quarterback hit against these guys. I know they only have eight starters back from the time I played them in the Super Bowl, but, they’ve only gotten better. I think we did a pretty good job. There were a couple of busts we had protection-wise that I’m sure all of us would like to clean up. But I thought Ryan (Tannehill) did a good job of getting the ball out. There were a couple of times where he knew we were trying to push the ball down the field a little bit. We were trying to get them off us a little bit. They took away some of our underneath stuff and we were trying to go down the field.”
(On how he keeps protesting from becoming a distraction) – “Our guys, whether they’re together as a group, individuals, I mean everybody believes in different stuff. That’s the great thing about this building. Once we do this, we’re after one thing. Winning. So all of the other stuff goes away. We’re worried about winning.”
(On if that was the LB Kiko Alonso he hoped he was getting when he made the deal) – “Yes. That was great to see. I mean he was. (Linebackers Coach Matt) Burke and myself were talking about that this morning, the fact that how he plays, he’s so fast sideline to sideline. He covers so much ground. He did a really good job too as far as the communication. We had a couple of times where they went really fast and tried to catch us off guard and he did a good job of saving the day on that. But when you have a guy like that, that runs as well as he does, but really he you never stops, it gets those other guys doing the same thing. You see one do it, then two do it and then the next thing you know, the whole group is doing it. You saw it yesterday. All it takes is one guy to really stir that thing up and then now you’ve got 11 guys chasing the ball all the time. I know that’s been a point of emphasis for us and he’s one of the guys leading the charge in that.”
(On if WR DeVante Parker was close to playing) – “Yes. He was. He was close. But just at the end of the day, if he goes out there and something happens and we lose him for four more weeks or something then (it’s not worth it) for one game. So we just want to make sure we get him as close to possible to where we just feel like we’re not going to have another setback. Is it going to be this week? I would love it. We need him to practice. We need him to go through. We need him to push himself. I know he’s trying to do that. I see how he’s rehabbing. I see how he’s working out when he’s running. It’s just kind of how everybody feels right before that game next week.”
