Chan Gailey – September 15, 2020
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Tuesday, September 15, 2020
Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey
(When you went back and watched the film, I know there was some good and some bad out of the offensive line. What went well in pass pro and what needs to get better in run blocking?) – “We did a good job, I thought, in pass pro for the first time out. We’ve got some communication things that we’ve got to take care of on the offensive line; but as you continue to develop the continuity there as well as the young players there, for the first time out they did a pretty good job. It’s going to keep – the tempo and the speed – getting bigger and faster every week just because we missed some stunts but we picked some up, so they’re going to keep trying that. In the run game, they moved some of their people than we had seen before. We didn’t handle movement very well and we’re going to get that too in the run game. We’ve got to improve that facet of what we’re trying to get done. We just didn’t get our base package run game running like I want to.”
(Obviously you guys lost WR DeVante Parker about halfway through the game. How much does losing someone like him change what you can do as a play-caller and what you ask of your offense?) – “We had to change some things. Everybody runs a route differently. Jakeem (Grant) is a good player but he runs things differently than DeVante does and we don’t have time on task from last year with ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) and Jakeem like we do ‘Fitz’ and DeVante. It changes some things. It changes some thought processes. So you have to adjust and I need to do a better job of adjusting when that happens. It’s the first time I’ve dealt with it with these guys, so hopefully I’ll be better the next time.”
(I wanted to ask you about the running game and I understand that you want to continue with the hot hand, but did you intend to use RB Myles Gaskin as much as you did and what’s the vision for RB Matt Breida?) – “We actually didn’t know how it was going to play out in the ball game. We have players that play certain packages for us and when the package that we were using Jordan (Howard) for wasn’t doing as well, it ended up lessening his play time and Myles went up because we were more in the spread offense and doing things that we had him in there for. We were trying to use all of the packages where it would get spread fairly evenly if we could; but it just didn’t work out that way by the end of the game.”
(Of course all coaches are looking for players capable of big plays, whether natural big plays or gadget plays. Does it look to you that either RB/WR Malcolm Perry or WR Lynn Bowden Jr. will be able to help you any time soon?) – “I don’t know if I can say they’ll be ready to help or not. They might be. We still work with them every day and see what they bring to the table (and) how much they’ve got to learn. Lynn is much further behind right now because he just hasn’t been here for a while. I’m excited about what he might be somewhere down the line, as I am Malcolm. It’s just they haven’t been here long enough and been in the fire, so to speak, to say that we’re going to really try to expand their packages at this point. We’re taking it on a week-by-week basis with where we’re going with that. If we have DeVante (Parker), that might not open up something. If we don’t have him, that might open up something. We’re just kind of waiting and seeing on that.”
(Obviously you’re in the booth but I noticed on the field, QB Tua Tagovailoa had his helmet on and was sitting next to QB Ryan Fitzpatrick and not too far away from the coaching staff during most of the game. How did you think of how he absorbed his first NFL game on the sideline behind Fitz?) – “I think very well. (Quarterbacks Coach) Robby Brown can probably answer that better because he was with him on the sideline but when I talked to Robby and I talked to Tua, it seemed like he was understanding of what we were getting on the field and looking at the tablet, being able to absorb how the game goes, the speed of the game. It’s a different speed than college, it really is. I think for the first time, he was able to learn a lot and get a grasp because normally you have four preseason games to get that and he hasn’t had any.”
(So regarding your running back rotation, where does RB Matt Breida stand right now? It took a while for us to see him in the ball game the other day, so where does he stand? And if things should continue, might RB Myles Gaskin be in the running to be your starting back at some point?) – “I don’t know that I could ever say that we’re going to, at this point, have a guy. I think that we’re going to let the guys try to do what they do best. We’d like to play (Matt) Breida more. I think we’ll try to incorporate some of his skillset into what we do. But there are a certain number of plays in a game and you can’t get them all in there at once. We’re going to try to expand all of their roles but at the same time, there’s only a certain number of plays for guys to get in. I think we’ll look and see what fits each player best and try to do that with them.”
