Chan Gailey – September 21, 2020
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Monday, September 21, 2020
Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey
(I was wondering your thoughts on the performance of the offense in general and QB Ryan Fitzpatrick in particular on Sunday?) – “We didn’t play well enough. If you lose, you didn’t play well enough. That’s the bottom line. We made improvement from last week this week; but it’s going to take more improvement for us to get to where we want to get to. I thought we did some good things. Our two-minute offense, the first half, second half, last week has continued to be positive. I hope we can run the ball a little bit better in the future; but Ryan’s one of the greatest competitors I’ve ever been around. He’s a great leader and made some great throws yesterday. I hope that will continue and we’ll get rid of the bad stuff and keep the good stuff going.”
(I wanted to ask you a little bit about the running game. What do you feel are the issues – 99 yards wasn’t that bad in terms of production standpoint, obviously you didn’t win; but, why do you feel you’re having these issues about your base run game?) – “A lot of times defenses dictates. The reason we were able to hit so many play-action passes yesterday is because they played the extra defender up in the box, and you’ve got run or pass called. When they play the extra defender in the box, you can hand it off but you’re going to gain 1 or 2 yards, or you can throw the play-action pass and have a chance for a bigger play. A lot of times defenses dictate your running game for you. Right now, we’re content to take the run game when we can get it, and then be efficient with it. That’s the biggest thing is to be efficient when you do run it. We’ve got more than I want zero and one-yard plays in the run game. We’re dictated a lot of times on the defense.”
(I wanted to get your thinking on the goal-line situation. You took four shots obviously at the goal line, then you threw on fourth down to WR Preston Williams. What was your thinking, what were you trying to accomplish obviously besides getting in the end zone on those four plays? And aside from the drop, was that fourth-down play executed as planned?) – “We have a goal-line package every time we walk into a game. We had plays we thought would work and we didn’t execute them to the best of our ability and we didn’t get into the end zone. That’s a product of maybe I’ve got to do a better job of planning those plays and getting better play management in that situation. Then we’ve got to execute better. If he catches the ball, we’re not having this discussion. Since he didn’t, we are. Everybody has decisions to make on the football field, and ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) made the decisions he made and most of the time it works when he makes them, but this time it didn’t.”
(I wanted to ask you about WR Preston Williams. Obviously we saw him in camp and he kind of showed out in terms of production. What do you think is contributing to his slow start? Is it the cornerbacks that’s defending him? Is that one of the reasons he’s had a slow start so far?) – “Well, they took their No. 1 corner and put him on (Williams) most of the game yesterday. That shows a lot of respect for who they think Preston is. So that’s part of it. We’ve got to continue to find out the things he’s doing well and make sure that we’re incorporating the things he does well. We want to make him the best player that he can be, but he’s drawing some of the tough guys right now.”
(Yesterday QB Ryan Fitzpatrick talked about some of the adjustments coming out of the locker room in the second half. I’m just curious to get your take on what you saw the Bills doing defensively and how you kind of made those adjustments at halftime?) – “We had a run or two that we wanted to try that we hadn’t had in the game plan going in. Then we added a couple of passes that we felt like we could take advantage of play fakes since they had everybody up near the ball. We thought we could play-action pass them and get guys in a position behind those linebackers to make some plays. We were able to get that done. We just adjusted a couple plays we already had. We just adjusted a couple of those and put people in a position to be successful.”
(Last week you mentioned wanting to incorporate RB Matt Breida more in the play calling. Do you feel like you accomplished that? Also kind of a two-part question. We asked about RB Myles Gaskin last week, but again he had another solid performance in the catching game as well. Is it tough to incorporate three backs when you have two talented guys in the offseason and a young guy like Myles?) – “Yeah. There is only one football. Nobody ever gets it enough. That’s just the way it happens in this game. When you have good receivers, you have a good tight end, you have good running backs, everybody cannot touch it as much as they would like to touch it or as much as anybody would like for them to touch it. You have to do what the defense allows you to do. Matt played well yesterday and did some really good things. Myles continues to do some good things. Jordan (Howard) runs hard for us on the goal line and in some other places. We’re just going to continue to try to do what they do best.”
(What did you think of TE Mike Gesicki’s one-handed catch and also his play overall?) – “The catch was highlight-reel stuff. It was really an amazing catch; but I’ve seen him do it before. Doing it in the game, I didn’t expect it, but I understood it when I saw it because I’ve seen him do it before. He understands the game. He gets the game. He gets what he needs to do and where he needs to be. He’s able to catch the ball with his hands away from his body and he has such a big body that people have a hard time going around him to get to the ball. Right now he’s a tough target for people to cover.”
