RB Kenyan Drake – September 15, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 15, 2019
Postgame – New England
RB Kenyan Drake (transcribed by Anthony Gutierrez)
(Do you want to be here?) – “Of course I want to be here. This is my fourth year, and I’ve got a good relationship with everybody from the people that sweep up and mop up behind us, to the people in the kitchen staff, the coaching staff, the media relations people – everybody. So obviously, everything being equal, I would want to be here.”
(What does this team need to do to get out of this funk?) – “We need to get back to the basics. When you barely have 100 yards total offense at the end of the game, I don’t see you winning many games in that aspect. So we have to just play better ball, as cliché as it sounds or as simple of a fix as it sounds. You have to go out there and make sure on every single down you are playing good football – making sure you have your hands where they need to be, making sure you have your eyes where they need to be, because we can’t beat ourselves at this point. When we get behind the chains, we obviously have trouble moving the bal. So we have to continue to build confidence move the ball, get the ball in manageable situations and play ball from there.
(Obviously you didn’t come into the game until the second series, late on a third down. Are you comfortable being a third-down back?) – “I’m comfortable putting this team in a position to win games. I haven’t started legitimately since like high school. So regardless what the situation that the coaches see fit for the team to be at their best, I have to go out there and put myself in the best position to maximize the opportunity to help this team win games. So, my touches come when they come and when I get on the field, I put everything together from a culmination of this week, and that is what I’m going to continue to do.”
CB Xavien Howard – September 15, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 15, 2019
Postgame – New England
CB Xavien Howard (transcribed by Devin Davis)
(You guys obviously got a lot of pride as individuals. To lose two in a row like you did out there…) – “Losing sucks. We still have to keep our head strong. I feel like we just have to get better each week. I feel like we did way better than we did last week. I feel like we’ve got to keep improving and get better each week.”
(You were on WR Josh Gordon a lot today, obviously when WR Antonio Brown was in. For the most part you handled him pretty well. What did you think of that?) – “I thought I did a good job. I probably had like two penalties, but other than that, I need to catch the ball.”
(I presume you’ve never gone through a stretch like this in football – losing like this. What do you do to get better? How do you know you can get out of this?) – “I feel like we’ve just got to keep improving. Like I said, we’ve just got to keep improving and get better each week. It’s tough right now. Hopefully we just turn everything around.”
Josh Rosen – September 15, 2019 (Postgame)
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Postgame – New England
QB Josh Rosen (transcribed by Ken Mendonça)
(That play toward the sideline, what happened on that play when you scrambled out? What happened that you were able to come back into the game?) – “I scrambled out a little bit and took a couple, too many split seconds before I stepped out of bounds, and my foot got kind of caught in that little tarp area. It was dumb by me. I have to understand when the down is over and move onto the next one. The trainers told me to stay down. I was trying to get up. But, I don’t know I just listened to them and came back in the next play.”
(You looked like you were slinging it. You took three or four deep shots. Was that a situation where you just had nothing to lose? What was your thinking there?) – “I just wanted to go in and provide some kind of positive for us to come in after the game. They put me out there to try and throw touchdowns, so that’s what I tried to do. Obviously you never want to throw a pick in the last second of a game, but it’s all a learning experience. I think I threw some good ones and some bad ones. We’ll watch the film.”
(Do you feel like your time is coming eventually? That you just have to be patient and you’re going to get a shot to start a game at 0-0 for the Miami Dolphins?) – “I don’t know. That’s not really up to me. Whenever they put me in, like I said my job is to try and throw touchdowns.”
Ryan Fitzpatrick – September 15, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 15, 2019
Postgame – New England
QB Ryan Fitzpatrick
(Obviously it was tough out there for you. Where do you think your confidence and morale is?) – “It’s a tough way to start a year with the two losses back-to-back at home like they were. They’re not the way we envisioned it going, but (there is) nothing to do but to go back to work and try to get better.”
(What has to happen for the offense to score some points?) – “Yeah, we had a lot of three-and-outs today. I think the first down was a problem for us today, which puts you kind of behind the chains for the other two downs. There wasn’t a whole lot that was going right on offense today.”
(Did you talk to your o-line after those sacks? What happened on the sideline?) – “There’s a lot of different things that go on. Some of those are – you hate to pass blame around. As a quarterback, you try to get the ball out. You try to get yourself in the best position. There are a lot of things, I think, that I could do better in that regard.”
(Are you all right? You got your face thumped.) – “Yeah, I’m good. It probably looks worse than it is. I’m fine.”
(I would assume it happened on one of the sacks?) – “Yeah.”
(How do you physically?) – “(I feel) good. Physically, I feel good. Mentally and emotionally, not so much; but physically I didn’t take any real big shots today.”
(Did you feel any kind of pressure from the fans’ perspective knowing that last year when Miami faced the New England Patriots and that Miami Miracle happened that last play, do you feel any sort of pressure to give the fans the same type of excitement for this game?) – “I think there’s a lot of things – we’re focusing on ourselves right now and trying to get better as a football team and trying to figure things out. That’s our main focus right now.”
(Are you in a no-win situation? It seems like there’s tons of pressure, guys are dropping balls, you’re behind all the time…) – “Well, I mean, as a quarterback, everything – at the end of the day – it’s all going to fall on you. That’s why we play the position that we do. That’s why I play the position, because I want that responsibility. I want that blame. I know I can go out there and do a much better job. I think especially at this position, if you go out there and play better, then the team as a whole does better, so I’ve just got to continue to try to do my best out there.”
(This offense for two weeks has struggled to move the ball running, throwing the ball, having difficulties. Do you still feel confident that this offense can turn around and become an offense that can put the points on the board to allow you to be in these games?) – “Yeah, that’s why we’ve got to go back and go to work. We put a couple of good weeks of practice together and haven’t showed it in the game, and we’ve just got to continue to every day focus on ourselves and keep trying to get better, and hopefully the results will follow.”
(What’s the feeling in the locker room after back to back games where you’ve been outscored by this much? It’s got to be frustrating.) – “Yeah, not great. It’s pretty quiet in there. Not great. It’s never fun to be embarrassed, especially two weeks in a row at home.”
(Trying to move the ball, you had the one pick-six that was a tip that shouldn’t happen. Can you tell us what happened the other pick-six, the first one?) – “We ran a little play out to the right. They did a nice job. ‘K.D.’ (Kenyan Drake) kind of got hit by the defensive end, and it was 3rd-and-shorter. We were definitely going to go for it on fourth down, just in the situation that it was in the game. I tried to jam one in to DeVante (Parker) rather than maybe just trying to run and get a yard; but being 3rd-and-short, I thought that I had to try to make some sort of play, and it didn’t work out.”
(Another tough opponent next week, this time on the road. It’s a short time to get back. How much improvement can this team – they made some improvement from Week 1 to Week 2 – how much of it will you make moving forward?) – “Yeah, we’ve got to improve. We’ve got to get better. There’s not going to be anybody in this league that’s going to feel sorry for us, so we’ve got to continue to try to get better every day with ourselves and collectively as a team, and hopefully, again, the results are going to start showing up on Sunday.”
Brian Flores – September 15, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 15, 2019
Postgame – New England
Head Coach Brian Flores
(What do you take out of this?) – “I mean, I thought they played hard, and I thought they played hard for 60 minutes. We were there for half, maybe two and a half quarters, and then we just couldn’t get anything going offensively. I thought – that’s a good team, and we just didn’t do enough.”
(What changes are you planning with the defense…?) – “Defensively, I thought the guys played hard, made some stops. I mean that’s a good offense. I thought they played hard. I thought we tackled fairly well. I thought we defended the deep part of the field well. They made some plays, as well. They’ve got good players. Offensively, we didn’t get anything going. We turned the ball over. We’ve got to do a better job offensively and really collectively as a team.”
(Where do you stand with the quarterback? Is QB Ryan Fitzpatrick still your starter or is it open?) – “Ryan is still the starter. We’ll evaluate things over the course of the week, and as of right now, Ryan is still the starter.”
(Do you think the defense just got exhausted out there?) – “They were out there for a long time. I think you want to play complementary football – offense, defense, special teams. I thought we got some good punts out of (Matt) Haack. I thought we played good defense in spurts. We just couldn’t string any drives together offensively, which was — you need to do that against this team. Really you’ve got to do that against this team. They played well defensively. We couldn’t get anything going.”
(How do you turn the page for the next game?) – “We’ll just come back to work tomorrow, come in, we’ll make the corrections on today’s film and we’ll come back Wednesday. I thought we had a better week of practice. But at the end of the day, it’s about our production in games. We’ll just come back, we’ll go to work, we’ll make the corrections, we’ll get better, we’ll improve – and it’s disappointing. Those guys are disappointed. They work hard. They put in a lot of work. But we’ve just got to play better.”
(Today the team celebrated Hispanic Heritage month. Obviously it’s also Honduras’ independence day. Do you feel that the NFL is tearing down barriers for Latinos in the league?) – “Yeah. Football brings people together, from all races, nationalities; so yeah, I think the NFL does a good job of that – a great job of that – and I’m sure they’ll continue to do that.”
(Offensively, all game long you couldn’t get anything going, put a lot of pressure on the defense. Certainly a lot of opportunities left out there on the field. How do you see that improving over the next couple weeks, and what has to be done there?) – “That’s disappointing. There were some drops out there, some plays we could have made. We left some yards out there. I think we know that. The good thing is that we had opportunities. We’ve just got to – we’ve got to capitalize. We’ve got to capitalize on those opportunities. They don’t show up often, and we have to make plays when they’re presented. And I think we’ll do that. I think we’ll improve. We’ll get better. We have some guys – I believe in our players. I believe they’ll make those plays. I know they’re disappointed that they didn’t; but it wasn’t one guy, it was us as a collective group. We’ve got to do a better job as a staff of getting them in position to make more of those plays. The missed opportunities were there. Everybody can see them. We’ve just got to do a better job.”
(It seemed like the offensive line early on was doing some pretty good things and then things started to break down with pass protection, giving the running backs space to run. Tough running out there it seemed like all day long.) – “Yeah, they’ve got a good defense and they do a good job with their rush, picks, stunts, and we’ve just got to do a better job protecting. As the game wore on, we struggled in that phase and couldn’t get anything going.”
(Do you feel good about your defense playing hard against a very good football team, hung in there as long as they could and they just got overwhelmed there towards the end with two touchdowns from the offense?) – “I thought they played hard. Like you said, I thought they played hard. I thought the communication was better, the tackling was better. I thought they played hard, and it’s a good offense. We got them off the field a couple time. It’s a great quarterback, you guys know that. They’ve got great skill players. They made some plays, and I thought the defense played hard. I thought as a team, we played hard. They fought all the way to the end. We’ve just got to continue to do that, and things will turn.”
(You used S Minkah Fitzpatrick differently today, it looked like. How do you think he did?) – “I thought defensively, like I said, I thought there was good communication, there was good tackling. I thought he played well. Again, he’s a very versatile player. You can use him in a lot of different ways. He did a good job today; but at the end of the day, it’s a team game and we’re all disappointed that we didn’t play better. That’s kind of where I’m at on that.”
(Where do you guys stand from a confidence and morale standpoint on the team?) – “I think that’s a resilient group in there. It really is. That’s a resilient group in there. I don’t think anyone is – they’re not making excuses. They’re not going to point fingers. I think they’re just going to – we’re just going to go back to work tomorrow, make the corrections, come back Wednesday, make some more corrections and try to get better. We’ve got a big game on the road next week. That will be a challenge in itself, and we’re going to do everything possible to play better and have a better outcome.”
Bobby McCain – September 13, 2019
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Friday, September 13, 2019
S Bobby McCain
(On the reports of S Minkah Fitzpatrick asking for a trade.) – “You control what you can control. I can’t really control how people feel. If he feels that way, then that’s how he feels. But we know, as he knows, that he’s a big part of the game plan. He’s got a job to do. Like I said, he’s a big part of the game plan so we have to put out a better performance than we had last Sunday. That’s really what we’re focusing on. Anything outside of those lines, you can deal with when those 60 minutes are up.”
(But if you’ve got a guy that’s not all in, what’s the reaction of his teammates to that?) – “Minkah (Fitzpatrick) loves football. Minkah loves football, so I know he is going to be all-in. I would never question that. At the end of the day, there is a business end of football, and then there is football. We know that unfortunately this business is a crazy business; but if that is what you’ve got to get done, you’ve got to get things done. You also – he knows, and we all know, regardless of everything that’s going on, everything that people want to blow out of proportion, just going out and getting the job done and winning, that will calm things down for sure.”
(You do not think this will affect what happens on the field?) – “No.”
(Do you think it’s possible that some of S Minkah Fitzpatrick’s teammates may be able to change his mind? In other words, is it sort of a thing where you recruit him a little. Like, ‘Hey, we need you. We want you to stay?’) – “Minkah is a good football player. He knows that. He’s a great football player. He’s going to be really good for this league. He knows he’s a big part of this team, and he is a big part of this defense. Like I said, when it’s all said and done, in between those 60 minutes, in between those lines, we’re just focused on New England and we won’t have to do that.”
(Is there a broader problem with guys looking for the exit here? Is it not just S Minkah Fitzpatrick? Are there others?) – “No. No, I don’t think so. If there is, there is. At the end of the day, I can’t control that.”
(You don’t sense that?) – “No. One of my biggest things is just control what you can control. If you do that – my big homie told me that. A couple of my big homies told me that a long time ago – Louis Delmas and Reshad Jones – control what you can control, and it all will work out for you. All I can control is my efforts on the field and that’s with everyone else. Control my efforts on the field and how I approach it, how I talk to people and how I lead this team. We’ll go out Sunday and put on a better performance than we did on Sunday.”
(It seems like this program – the new program, the Head Coach Brian Flores program – is hard. It’s hard physically, it’s hard mentally, it’s challenging. What are your thoughts on if it’s too much, too hard?) – “It’s football. It’s football. If it’s too hard, then you wouldn’t be here. At the end of the day, if it’s too hard for you, you can go play – if that’s how they feel, (that) it’s too hard – we want mentally, physically tough players (and) team. At the end of the day, I feel like you’ve just got to buckle down and do you job, and do your role and know what it is and flourish in it.”
Minkah Fitzpatrick – September 13, 2019
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Friday, September 13, 2019
S Minkah Fitzpatrick
(Have the Dolphins told you if they’re willing to fulfill the trade request that became public last night?) – “I’m not talking about none of that right now. I’m focused on the New England Patriots. (It will be a) great game (against a) great team this Sunday, so that’s all I’m focused on. I’m a big part of this week’s game plan, so I’m going to go out there and give my all to this team, because I am a Miami Dolphin. Like I said, (I am) going to do my best to make sure I play my best, perform my best. That’s all I’m focusing on right now is the New England Patriots, basically one of the best teams in the league, so we have to prepare for them. It doesn’t matter – if I go out there and don’t play well – I can’t focus on the trade and this and that. I just have to focus on being my best right now and that’s it.”
(What role do you expect to play on Sunday on defense?) – “It’s multiple things. Every single week it’s multiple things whether it’s going to be covering the tight end, covering the running back, covering receivers – multiple things. I can’t tell you specifically what it is week to week, because it’s always something different.”
(Do you expect to be here all season?) – “I’m not talking about the future. I’m not talking about the past. I’m talking about right now. This is the New England Patriots. That’s it.”
(Is it because your role is so multiple is that you have to do so many things, is that a reason why the trade request has come down?) – “I’m talking about right now. (The) New England Patriots are a great team. Tom Brady is one of the best players to ever play the game. That’s what I need to focus on right now.”
(Do you like playing multiple roles on this defense?) – “I do. Yeah.”
(Do you like and do you want to remain in Miami?) – “I’m not talking about my likes, dislikes. I’m talking about the New England Patriots. That’s it.”
(Are you frustrated you have to address this or that this got out?) – “It is a little frustration, but like I said, I just have to shift my focus onto what’s important. I can’t focus on trade talk or anything else like that. I’ve got to focus on the New England Patriots, my teammates, coaches and this week’s game plan.”
(Do you have to say anything to your teammates after reports like that are swirling?) – “If they have any questions, they know to ask me. I don’t think I have to say anything directly to them.”
(What’s your state of mind right now?) – “I’m good. It’s just a regular week – game plan, focus on the game plan, focus on my opponent. Today is Friday, so I get to hang out with the family a little bit, relax with them and come tonight, focus on the game plan some more. Saturday, it’s back to work.”
(In your conversation with Head Coach Brian Flores this week, are you reassured about the role and where you stand with the team?) – “My conversations with ‘Coach Flo’ was the game plan with the Patriots. That’s the only conversation we had. We were just talking about what we’ve got to do for the Patriots to win that game.”
(And the way you’re going to be used Sunday, do you feel like it works to your skills without getting too specific about how you’re getting to be used?) – “My skillset is a football player – playing football, so yes.”
J’Marcus Webb – September 13, 2019
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Friday, September 13, 2019
T J’Marcus Webb
(Head Coach Brian Flores said you’re going to get the start at right tackle. How has this week of practice gone for you and how do you think you will do on Sunday?) – “It’s always about the next-man-up mentality. All I can is stay prepared and get in the film (room) and communicate with the guys who are in the room, and make sure that I keep the work ethic that I have been and prepare, prepare, prepare, work, work, work and get some good sleep, get some good foods and stay ready.”
(What’s your level of excitement at starting?) – “Just about this smile right here. I’ve just got to hold that and put my hand on the ground and get ready to grind.”
(What was your reaction when you realized that the guy who started at right tackle last week had gotten hurt?) – “What was my reaction?”
(I don’t know if you saw it happen, if you thought, “Oh my gosh, I might be playing now.” You know what I mean, if you could tell it was serious?) – “It’s really bad what happened to Julién (Davenport). At a practice, that’s tough. You’ve got to give him his due respect and keep moving forward and keep your head in the game, really, because like I said, it’s the next man up and you’ve got to be prepared.”
(What challenge do you see from the New England defense? What’s the biggest issue they present?) – “You’ve got to just keep it in-house. There is no challenge too big if you prepare the right way, and that’s what we’ve been doing all week. Why not? Why not continue to just do that, communicate, work hard, stay in the film and know these guys better than we know ourselves.”
