Jerry Schuplinski – February 15, 2019
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Friday, February 15, 2019
Assistant Quarterbacks Coach Jerry Schuplinski
(Tell us about your experience last year coming from New England to the Dolphins, about the Super Bowl, and those high expectations you had last year with your team and now coming to a new experience here in Miami.) – “It’s exciting. I would say first of all, I’m very thankful for the opportunity with the organization. I’m really honored to work with (General Manager) Chris (Grier) and with ‘Flo’ (Head Coach Brian Flores), so that’s awesome. My family and I are really excited. (I) had a great experience in New England all six years. I learned from some great people, worked with some great people, learned from some of the best, I think. I’m very appreciative of that and it was just a great opportunity here and a good time to move on and be a part of this.”
(What excites you about this opportunity?) – “I’d say the first thing that excites me is the people that I’m working with to be honest with you. I’m excited to work with them. I’m excited to move down here to the weather. That’s pretty cool. I’d say just the organization itself. It has a lot of good history in it. I’m partial. Don Shula is a John Carroll (University) guy, like myself. I haven’t met him yet, obviously. (This organization’s) got great history. It will be an opportunity to hopefully try to build something.”
(What can you draw from your experiences in New England that might help you with the youthfulness at the position of quarterback coming to Miami?) – “I’d say a big part of what my responsibilities were there was to work with a young quarterback. We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to draft some guys and work with some guys and groom them and teach them our system. I feel that’s an area that I feel pretty confident in. However we do it, I think we’re still working out a lot of kinks with our offense and what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it. We’re still evaluating a lot of things,; but whoever it is, whether it’s a guy who’s been here or somebody else, we’ve got a lot of quarterbacks that we’ll all work with them and try to get them better.”
(How do you narrow down what you like to do as an offense in terms of different philosophies, different schemes? Do you really have to wait and evaluate your talent on a roster to match your schemes? How do you go about that process?) – “I think that’s a big part of it. I think you have to have at least a base plan to start and then you modify it accordingly based on the talent that you have and that’s available to you. I think you start with your own roster evaluation here, (and then) obviously you have draft guys. There are some pieces that are going to be moving and fluctuating, as they will during the season, too. It’s kind of hard but you have a base plan, a base idea, of how you call things, a terminology, how you identify things and then you grow from there once your team starts to piece together.”
(How have the last couple of weeks been for you?) – “It’s been awesome. It’s been really cool. I’m very thankful for the opportunity I had there (in New England) and very glad to be a part of what we did there recently. But like anything, it’s time to move on and that happened pretty quick after that. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, but really fun.”
(What was appealing to you about this job here?) – “I was just saying before, the people I’m working with I think is the most appealing. I don’t know (General Manager) Chris (Grier). I didn’t know him until I really got down here. I’ve heard some really good things about him. Obviously, working with (Head Coach) Brian (Flores) before, he’s a guy I really respect. And then the guys on our staff too, the offense and even the defense, I know some of these guys. There is some familiarity there. I’d say just in terms of the organization, it’s got good history. There is some great stuff they’ve done here in the past and I’m looking forward to whatever our part is going forward here.”
(I asked Offensive Coordinator Chad O’Shea this a little bit at the Super Bowl and want to get your opinion on it. The qualities in a quarterback that are important to you, what are the top two or three things a quarterback has got to do?) – “I’d say sometimes you’ve got to be careful, because it’s hard to pigeonhole yourself into one thing. I’d say in general as a team and at this position too, we’re looking for tough, smart, can handle a lot of things, dependable. You want a guy who can play under pressure, perform under pressure when we need him the most. That goes for all positions but that’s quarterback, too.”
(QB Tom Brady is a lot of things but mobile isn’t one of them. Is mobility something in the NFL that’s more ‘en vogue’ or do you think that a pocket passer is still the way?) – “I don’t know. I don’t have a feeling one way or the other in terms of you need this, you need mobility or you need a pocket guy. I just think you need a guy who can function well in your system. Guys who are pocket passers, or have the term pocket passers, that can step up and elude rushes and navigate the pocket, they don’t have to be guys that take off down the field, those are fine. If you have a guy that’s mobile and can break the pocket, that’s always a good thing, too. It just kind of varies.”
(I’d imagine you haven’t had a chance to visit too much with the players, because of the non-contact period, but have you had a chance to see much of them on tape yet?) – “We’re kind of working through that right now. I’d be lying if I said I’ve watched every single guy and gone through everything. We’re kind of in the mix of getting our terminology down and getting familiar with each other as a coaching staff. We’re kind of going through that process right now.”
(Do you think Offensive Coordinator Chad O’Shea is going to want to run things, I don’t want to say similar, but the same philosophy as New England or do you think he’s going to be completely his own guy?) – “I’d say that’s where most of his experience is, so I’m sure that’s probably where he’s going to draw from the most. But I’m sure there are some unique things he’ll want to bring too. A little bit of both I would say.”
