Jay Cutler – December 7, 2017
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Thursday, December 7, 2017
QB Jay Cutler
(From a physical standpoint, how taxing has the year been on you? Does your body feel it?) – “I had two weeks off (with) the injury. I feel good. I think the offensive line has done a good job. (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) has done a good job calling plays and trying as much as he can to keep the quarterbacks upright.”
(As you watch tape, it’s clear the run blocking seemingly has been better recently. Anything you attribute that to? Do you like the way G/T Jesse Davis and C/G Ted Larsen are playing? Anything you’d point to?) – “I think the guys are playing well upfront. I think we’re starting to kind of get in a rhythm with Adam (Gase) and ‘Kup’ (Assistant Offensive Line Coach Chris Kuper) and ‘Guge’ (Senior Offensive Assistant Dave DeGuglielmo) and all the coaches kind of coming together. Anytime I think you go through what we go through, there’s going to be a little bit of a transition period of everyone figuring out roles and stuff.”
(What’s you approach when you see an individual receiver – like WR DeVante Parker has lately – kind of struggling? Do you take a little initiative on yourself to get him going in a game or do you talk to him at all during the week? Is there anything you do to try to help him?) – “Both. I think we challenge him. We encourage him. We try to feed him balls out there. We’ve just got to get him believing in himself and using his talents. He’s an immensely talented dude. He’s a good kid. He wants to do it right. It’s just finding ways to keep him confident and eager to go.”
(Have you had enough time with WR DeVante Parker where you feel like you kind of know how to get through to him?) – “Yes. He’s very approachable. He’s not a confrontational dude. There’s no real big ego there. He just wants to do it right and he wants to be a good to great player. We’ve just got to help him along.”
(So which is it? Do you try to challenge him or…) – “Both. Everything. We throw everything we can at him. I think challenge him after the game. We’ve been encouraging him today. We force fed him some balls a little bit to get him going. It’s going to come. It’s not something that I think won’t happen for him. It’s not something (where) I think he’s playing bad. You just look at him and I know he wants more and we want more. We’ve just got to keep encouraging him down that right path.”
(What’s different about a Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick defense?) – “I think it’s the whole team in general. It’s a very, very smart team. (They are) situationally aware. They do things the right way. I think they tackle well on defense. Their assignments are on point. I think he’s notoriously taken away your number one receiver. He makes you get to two and three. (He) makes you do things that are maybe a little bit out of your comfort zone. I think they do a really good job of keeping things in front of them, making offenses go the long road – three, four or five first downs – to score. We’ve just got to figure it out.”
(When you talk about they take away the number one receiver, I know one of their things is they usually figure out something that they want to take away. Is there any way that you can prepare for that coming into the game?) – “I think for us, if you want to take away … Who do you want to take away? I think we’ve got some guys who mix it up enough. ‘Juice’ (Jarvis Landry) is obviously … I think he’s up there in the league in catches; but Kenny (Stills) had a big game last week. ‘Juls’ (Julius Thomas), we’re starting to get him the ball a little bit more. We’ve got running backs coming out of the backfield catching the ball. We mix it up. I think Adam has done a good job with doing that.”
(For a guy who has been in the league a while, you haven’t played this team very much. What does that make this week like for you?) – “It’s a game. It’s a game both sides want to win. We’re in December, so these games count quite a bit.”
(For prepping for them and being into what they’re all about, have there been any surprises as you look at them and see?) – “No.”
(From what Head Coach Adam Gase was saying, it’s difficult because … It sounded like basically what he was saying was there’s no reference point for them. You don’t know what to expect because you get a different version of them defensively all the time.) – “You can’t say, ‘Hey, they’re a Cover 2 team,’ or, ‘Hey, they’re a 3-4 Buzz team.’ That’s not who they are. They’re going to play whatever defense they think gives them the best chance to win. It could be different every week. It could be different this week than what we saw two weeks ago.”
(Is that unique in the league?) – “I think there are probably a couple of guys that do it out there. Obviously, no one has done it as well as Bill (Belichick) and the Patriots have.”
(Has the fact that TE Julius Thomas has had more success in in the red zone, has it been a function of you guys working together more? Has it been a conscious attempt by Head Coach Adam Gase to get him more involved in the red zone?) – “I think it has just kind of worked out that way. Some of the defenses we’ve seen, he has made some plays for us. It’s just kind of a product of the offense and how things have played out for us.”
(You guys are averaging 25 points a game in Hard Rock Stadium. All good execution or is there anything to being at home, playing at home?) – “It’s my first year with this team, so I think that’s kind of hard for me to give you an accurate answer. I don’t know what they, what everyone did at home last year here. It seems like we’re comfortable here. We like our schedule here. Hopefully we can keep playing well.”
(You had either minimal or no relationship with any of the receivers here when you came in. What have you found WR Jarvis Landry to be?) – “In regards to?”
(In regards to a teammate, a receiver for you, an option when things are breaking bad?) – “He’s a guy that I’d want to play with year in, year out. I think he’s a heck of a teammate. I think he plays extremely, extremely hard. He’s smart. He’s tough. When things break down, he’s going to make plays for you. Whenever you get in the fourth quarter, he wants the ball. He’s going to make plays for you. He’s got a lot of production in this offense. For him as kind of a slot guy, not playing outside as much as some of the other guys throughout the league, it’s a lot of balls. It’s a lot of production he has had here.”
