Adam Gase – September 13, 2017
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Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Is everyone here? Was everyone able to get here?) – “Yes. I think the last guys arrived pretty late last night. I know Cam (Wake) was … Cam might’ve been the last one to get here. He stayed back. We just had to find a flight for him and get him out here.”
(How different is this in terms of difficult in terms of the distraction?) – “I think our guys are handling it well. You always kind of hope for one thing as a coach. You’re not really sure until you lay eyes on everybody when you have that first meeting. When we got here, our guys seemed focused, ready to go. I think they’ve been itching. They had a good couple days last week in practice. I think they’re just ready to play some football.”
(What is your message to the players considering – obviously not the ideal – what’s your message?) – “I’m not really worried about this group. They’ve been through a lot over the last year and half with some of the challenges we met last year and going into this year. Everything hasn’t always been smooth, but these guys, they battle and they fight and they handle adversity as good as anybody I’ve been around.”
(Can you touch upon how the process went into this decision?) – “It was really just trying to figure out what we were going to do for this week, when we were … The timing of everything. Once we just decided we’re going to go to L.A., just get out there early and start figuring out travel plans, that’s really where everything started going to the works. It was quick. Everybody did everything extremely fast and we were able to get a bunch of people on that flight out here with the families. We were scattered; everybody was scattered all over the country. So, it was just about getting us regrouped here by Tuesday morning. The guys did a great job. (Senior Director of Team Operations) Scott Bullis (and) his whole crew did a great job making sure everybody got out here and we had flights for everybody. Guys did a good job too of being responsible and checking in, making sure that we knew what was going on with them.”
(What did you address with them yesterday and how close is today to what you would normally have for a Wednesday?) – “It’s our normal Wednesday. The only thing I said to them was ‘Control what you can control. We’re going to play a game Sunday.’ We’ve got to get ready. I think these guys, they were glad to be back out there. I could tell there was good energy this morning in meetings. When we get going in practice, it’ll be fun for those guys. It feels like it has been forever; but it has been a week. Not playing a game and watching all the other games, I think they’re ready to go.”
(Can you look at any advantages of not having a game last week and possibly having two weeks of rest?) – “This is our opening game. You wait all year for that first week of the season and we didn’t get that opportunity last week. I think our guys are just ready to get going on it.”
(How does this compare in terms of the logistics and everything to the situation last year with the week in California?) – “It’s pretty smooth for us because we only have to walk 50 yards and we’re on the practice field. Us not having to travel anywhere and our meeting rooms are set up – we have a good set up – it’s really convenient for us that this was available for us.”
(Do you have any players that benefited from a little extra time? You signed a couple guys right at the beginning of Tampa Bay week and LB Rey Mualuga was still trying to get down to a certain weight.) – “Really it was … We were pretty healthy going into that first week. We felt pretty good about it. It’s really just another week. I don’t think really anything has changed for us that much.”
(When did you shift gears to the Chargers?) – “Probably not until like Saturday. You don’t want to get too far ahead. You start doing that and start making things up in your head.”
(So you wanted to see the Chargers play before you…) – “We wanted to get as close as we could to that game. Them playing on Monday night, we had to at least get going over the weekend. Everybody was scattered all over the place. I got here Saturday morning, so it was really getting set up and getting our situation settled – the coaching staff – and get the players here.”
(How much football did you watch on Sunday and Monday?) – “A good amount. It’s an interesting … Usually on the bye week you watch a little bit, but you almost avoid it a little bit. You’d rather not watch it sometimes. We hadn’t played a game yet. You’re watching guys that you’ve worked with before or friends of yours to see how their season is going to start off. That was interesting to kind of be a spectator that first week.”
(To follow that up, to be able to see the Chargers for a game, to get a little film, to see some of their personnel, how much is that going to benefit you?) – “It’s like being in Week 2. It’s no different than what it would have been for us if we would have played the first week. Seeing those guys in action, watching the defense, seeing them fly around in a different scheme, it’s really just carry over from what we saw in preseason and they’re always going to have something different each week. Watching their offense, you can see how explosive they can be. Myself, being in this division before, it doesn’t look far off from what I’ve seen in the past. I think between (Joey) Bosa and (Melvin) Ingram, they’ve really got it going right now.”
(How much concern are you sensing on the part of players for friends and family and property back home, because they are people too?) – “I think a lot of our guys, once we started today, they’ve wired in on what we’re doing. They’ve handled a lot of their business and communicated with the people they need to communicate with back home to figure out what’s going on and our guys have done a good job of keeping focused on what we have to do today. That’s kind of our job.”
(The Dolphins have said that they’re going to help Florida after the hurricane. What’s the plan there?) – “That’s going to be probably something that I worry about when we get through this game. We’ve got a decent flight home so we’re going to have time to discuss. I know some things have been kicked around already. I’ll probably know more of what our starting point is after this game on that flight back, and then Monday and Tuesday, obviously, we’ll be able to figure out what we’re going to do.”
(Given the stretch that you’re in right now: Los Angeles, New York, London, how much of a relief was it to find out that you will, at the end of this, go home and practice in Davie?) – “The fact that we can go back to our facility, our houses, that’s nice. Get back on the east coast and get ready for that next game. We weren’t sure what it was going to be and just to get that answer that soon, that was nice.”
(What kind of a sense do you get from QB Jay Cutler about his desire to play having had his debut delayed a week?) – “He hasn’t changed. He seems like he’s just ready to go play a game, just like the rest of the guys.”
(You have some very high-energy guys. Did you have guys in the last couple of days that seemed like they were bouncing off the walls because they had to wait another week?) – “I don’t think so, I didn’t see that. I saw guys that came here looking for the information that they needed to get ready for this next game, and I just think that they’re ready to play a game.”
(You guys got set up pretty fast. How accommodating was the city and the facility?) – “Everybody’s been great. I got here Saturday and it kind of had already started. The Rams helped us out with a lot of stuff. I don’t know how many IT guys they had sent over here to help our guys. They sent over a whole bunch of stuff as far as equipment that we needed, and made it easy for our guys to get things rolling before our stuff got here. Everybody’s been great and making sure we’re taken care of. It just seems like all hands were on deck to help us out.”
(Did you and your family travel with the team or did you guys leave earlier?) – “No, I left on Wednesday, so I was out of Florida on Wednesday after we found out what was going on and then my family was gone that night.”
(Did you suffer any damage from the hurricane to your property?) – “I have no idea. I haven’t asked. I’m not worried about it.”
(Now that we’re pretty close here to the first game, are you pretty settled in on cornerback and defensive tackle, as far as who’s going to start?) – “We’ll find out Sunday. We’re going to practice this week and see how it goes and then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do on Sunday.”
(What were your thoughts being here and watching all of the hurricane damage back home?) – “It’s a strange perspective, just kind of recognizing a lot of the things, watching it and getting text messages from people back there. You’re so far away. It doesn’t really seem real when you’re watching on TV; but knowing that that’s where you’re from and wondering how everything’s going to play out. There are a lot of friends that we have that are staff and players, that stayed back. So we were getting a lot of information as far as what was going on. We had a lot of guys scattered throughout Florida, too, so we were just getting constant updates with people that were still back there. It’s tough because you know that it’s going to take some time to recover and get things fixed, and it’s going to have to be a lot of people pulling together and finding a way to get things back to the way they were.”
