Kenyan Drake – November 26, 2018
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Monday, November 26, 2018
RB Kenyan Drake
(On being close to a win yesterday but not being able to pull it out at the end.) – “That’s football. It’s unfortunate that we ended up on that side of the win/loss margin. We have to finish better.”
(The offense finally seemed to get going. Is it a little more injecting finally now that you got into the end zone and see what you were capable of for a while?) – “Regardless of if we lost by 30 points or 1 point, the result is still the same. We have to find ways to move the ball when it matters. We just came up short.”
(Maybe things have calmed down a little bit overnight but what’s the mood of this team right now coming off that loss?) – “We understand that a lot of the situations that we put ourselves in are self-inflicted. We have to correct that. Whether it’s physical or mental, we have to put ourselves in the best situation to be able to win the game at the end of the game, which we are doing; but we have to finish it off. That’s our main goal.”
(Is there anger? Disappointment? What are the feelings in here right now?) – “This game is not really meant for a lot of feelings. We just know we have to do a better job at the end of the game to finish the game and that’s it.”
(What about in terms of the big picture and playoff hopes? What’s your mindset right now in terms of that?) – “We play to win the game so at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing: to put yourself in the best situation at the end of the day to win games. That’s our number one focus.”
(Have you looked at the standings?) – “No, because I know for us to control our destiny, we have to win out. So it doesn’t really matter what anybody else is doing. It matters about what we’re doing and that’s the most important thing is focusing on ourselves and focusing on our next opponent, then going out there and taking care of it each and every week.”
(You said you have to win out so is there a pretty big sense of urgency in here right now? Are backs against the wall?) – “No. We’re taking it one game at a time. At the end of the day, whoever we have next, that’s our next opponent. We (have to) do what we have to do (and) put this game behind us. We already looked at film so it’s on to Buffalo this week.”
(Head Coach Adam Gase said you fell on the same shoulder again. How much pain are you playing through?) – “Football is a physical game so everybody is nicked up. I’m doing my best to be in the game so I can help this team win more games.”
(What did you see on your two touchdowns? It looked like your speed came into play.) – “I didn’t get touched really on either one so that’s a testament to the linemen, the receivers, everybody being in the position they need to be in and me just trying to make a play with the ball in my hands.”
(Do you expect to practice this week and do you expect to play Sunday?) – “Yeah. I mean it’s football. Everybody is hurt so I’m going to be out there.”
Frank Gore – November 26, 2018
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Monday, November 26, 2018
RB Frank Gore
(After yesterday’s game, you were very upset. You let people know that you had to finish. How frustrating was yesterday’s loss?) – “It was very frustrating because we were dominating the game all of the way through until there were seven or eight minutes left in the game. We let it go. When you dominate the game, you have to finish the ballgame. It’s already hard to win games in this league. I thought we had that one.”
(I know you wouldn’t give up on a team but what’s the mood? What are you thinking the day after?) – “We’ll be okay. We just have to continue working, continue believing in us and stay as one believing in our coaches. It starts Wednesday. Get ready for Buffalo.”
(Do some losses hurt more than others?) – “Yeah. When you’ve got the win, you want to get it. We didn’t. We let it go. We were playing good ball all of the way until the last seven or eight minutes of the game, so that was tough.”
(Do you look at the standings? Do you know where you guys are right now?) – “No. I don’t look at that. I don’t even know where we are. I don’t look at it.”
(The passion that you spoke with yesterday after the game, is that one of those instances where you talk with the coaches and kind of find out what’s going on there?) – “No. I let coaches be coaches. I know that we’ve got great coaches. They’re going to come up with the right plan to make us be successful and I’m going to go with whatever they want to do. So no, I don’t.”
(Do you feel like the margin for error is close to zero at this point?) – “We’ve got to do something this week. I don’t know where we’re at in the hunt, in the playoffs, but we have to win. We’ve got to win this week. If we win this week, it’ll be better for us. I know that.”
(When the stadium started getting nice and loud at the end of the game, did you feel like you just have to make one play?) – “Yeah. We had them quiet the whole game. That’s why I say we were dominating the game. If we would have just made one play when we were backed up, we would have gotten them back quiet. But we didn’t and we lost.”
(If you had to point to what went wrong on those final two drives, does anything stand out to you?) – “We just didn’t make the plays. When it gets down to that time of the game, you have to make a play. I can’t point out anything. Whenever a play is called, we have to make it happen, and we didn’t.”
(I know this doesn’t mean anything to you after a loss but your season average now per carry is over 4.5 yards, which is pretty impressive at this advanced stage at anyone’s career. Do you take pride in that because not a lot of people that age have done?) – “You take pride in your yards per carry. You take pride in that. I’m just going to keep working hard and playing hard and trying to do whatever it takes to be successful to try to help my team be successful.”
(As a veteran, you’re not very vocal it seems like, when you talk to a lot of players. Is this one of those losses where you step up and start talking to these guys?) – “I’m not talking to guys but when I feel like it’s the right time for something to be said, I’m going to say it. The way we lost that game, we gave it away and I know we should have won that game. So that’s why it was hard for me.”
(Did you say anything to the team? Is that one of those moments?) – “I talked to some of my guys. I talked to some of the veteran guys who are the leaders of this team and told them we can’t let that happen.”
Adam Gase – November 26, 2018
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Monday, November 26, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(I know a lot of people are still angry, probably more than any time in your tenure of play-calling. I know you explained the fourth-quarter things yesterday but after thinking about it overnight, do you think maybe a case could be made to place faith in your franchise quarterback on two third-and-10s? I know the one at the 6-yard line but there was one at the 25-yard line. Or do you say all of these people are wrong and I did the right thing?) – “We did what we game-planned to do. We did what was best for that situation. I’m probably more upset about the second-down call. I thought we’d catch them in a pressure to that side and they came from the opposite side. If I could have that one back, that probably could have made a difference.”
(QB Ryan Tannehill’s last 10 throws – all in the second half – were all short passes. Was there anything physically that factored into that or that was complete game plan stuff?) – “I mean there’s a reason why their defense is playing well right now is they don’t give up big plays. The one that we got at the end of the half was unusual. You can’t find a whole bunch of explosive plays in their passing game. Their defense is built for you to score through the goal line. That’s kind of why we stay up here and do what we have to do because we actually know what they’re doing.”
(How did QB Ryan Tannehill come through physically?) – “He was fine. (He) probably (took) a couple of shots that didn’t feel good but he’ll be fine.”
(What are the updates on WR Danny Amendola and C Travis Swanson?) – “We’ll have to get through the week. They probably won’t practice most of the week. We’ll try to give them a shot on Friday and see what they can do and how they feel. That’s really as far as I know. I won’t really know until we get to the weekend.”
(Is either one more likely than the other?) – “No. Neither one of them are in great shape right now.”
(What’s your message going to be to the club? I wasn’t in the postgame locker room but I know there was a lot of anger there from all of the comments I read.) – “Yeah. When you lose, it sucks. We left too many opportunities on the field. You can’t do that when you’re playing a team that’s pretty hot. We shot ourselves in the foot too many times and then let it come down to those last couple of drives. It looks like we’re going to have (Andrew) Luck sacked and they’re going to be on their own 33 or 34 (yard line) and they’re going to be punting back to us and we’re going to have a minute-something left to go win the game. That was kind of the plan when we punted it, was we need one good play on defense. Matt (Haack) was punting the ball good all day. We had a chance and we missed it.”
(When Colts WR T.Y. Hilton got loose on that one play during the drive before the TE Eric Ebron touchdown, what was the call or what happened there?) – “We just didn’t execute the call correctly. We overlapped on coverage and allowed him to get free.”
(Was starting TE Durham Smythe and going to him early simply a function of something you saw in the Colts defense or has he been practicing especially well recently?) – “We’ve got a lot of different packages with the tight ends. You can look at starting and stuff like that and it doesn’t mean anything. He has been practicing well. He’s been doing a lot of good stuff. The entire season, he keeps getting better. The ball went there because coverage dictated it.”
(I think there were 22 or 23 snaps for WR DeVante Parker. Did you want to be cautious with him because of the shoulder?) – “No. It was just the personnel groupings. We had a specific way we wanted to attack them. A lot of things went well and we didn’t do some things right. We were scrambling a little bit there when Danny (Amendola) went down. It’s not really ideal when we have to move Kenny (Stills) inside. We don’t have Danny and now Kenny is going to play a spot that’s really not his natural spot. We’re just not that deep right now to where we can start moving all of these guys around and switching positions.”
(Is LB Kiko Alonso always on the punt block team and what did you see on that play?) – “There are just specific things that we do where sometimes the defensive guys stay out there. It was just him making a good play. I don’t think … A lot of times when we do stuff, you’re hoping for something like that to happen but it doesn’t always. It’s just unfortunate we couldn’t take advantage of it.”
(Not from a health standpoint for QB Ryan Tannehill but from a performance standpoint, was that as good as you could have expected after five or six weeks off?) – “Yeah, I mean I thought he played well. He executed what we asked him to do. There are some things we want to clean up, which are more technical than anything. The biggest thing for us was we knew we had to put drives together. It was not going to be a team where you’re going to get three or four plays and it’s going to be a touchdown. They just haven’t done that. I think something like 44 percent of their (defensive) drives were 10 or more plays that were scoring drives this year. They’ve done a great job of forcing you to play the way that they want you to play.”
(How is RB Kenyan Drake doing health-wise?) – “He’s all right. He just fell on that shoulder again, I think. That’s why he was down.”
(Is RB Kenyan Drake going to be limited in practice this week?) – “Him and DeVante (Parker), we’ll probably keep the same protocol as what we did last week.”
(How would you grade the run defense overall? Did you see any progress there?) – “The explosive plays, we’ve just got to eliminate those. They hurt us so bad. It’s one guy coming out of his gap. We’ve just got to keep tightening it up. I think a couple of times they caught us. They had a good call against what we had called. That’s going to happen. I can live with that. It’s just when we have a good call and we don’t execute it, that’s when it’s tough.”
(How much of that was there in the fourth quarter?) – “I thought (Defensive Coordinator) Matt (Burke) called a really good game. I thought he made it really tough on them. We got turnovers and it’s not like they’ve been … I mean, Andrew (Luck) hasn’t really been throwing picks. The way that they had it game-planned, the way that we executed for the majority of the game was good. If we can just eliminate these explosive plays, that’ll help us a lot. If we can just make teams have to drive on us because they’ll eventually, as we see every week, the offense will screw it up.”
(Where were your thoughts on the wild sequence at the end of the first half, with the three consecutive turnovers?) – “I was happy about two of them. (laughter) One of them I was not so happy. I felt good. I thought we were going to score there and just really flip the game, and then when we turned it over, that’s just a killer.”
(With the C Travis Swanson situation, any contingency plans for practice this week in terms of moving guys around?) – “We’ll get through that. We’ve kind of talked about it a little bit, but nothing is in stone yet.”
(How did your line do in your mind after C Travis Swanson went out?) – “We were trying to shuffle some things around and figure out what was the best lineup to go with and then once we got settled on that, there was some good, there was some bad. We kind of fell apart there at the end. I mean, Travis probably played five or six plays where he was hurt. We kind of missed an opportunity on one of those where he was pulling, couldn’t really run (but) was trying to run. We left a lot out there.”
(What’s your sense of the overall mood of the team, 5-6 with five games to go?) – “You’re disappointed because you’ve got two games where you’re sitting going like, well, 5-6, 7-4. So … It’s a (expletive) feeling.”
(Five games left, here comes December. Is this a particularly tough one to regroup from?) – “The good thing about NFL players is once we hit Wednesday, they really don’t care about last week. Which is probably better that they’re like that compared to the coaches. We’ll sit and think and dwell and all that stuff. These guys will do a good job of moving on and go to practice and work hard and get after it on Wednesday. Our focus just needs to be one game. How do we win one game? It’s probably good that we’re at home. We’ve got a great opportunity just to kind of get back to .500. We’ve just got to focus on ourselves and can’t worry about anybody else.”
(What kind of December team do you think this one is going to be? That’s where the culture comes in that you’ve talked about.) – “We’ll find out. Guys that we’ve got will battle. I thought they played hard yesterday. It was unfortunate we lost that game because I really thought there were a lot of guys that did good stuff. It’s just hard to see right now because everybody does the same thing. Everybody goes and looks at the result and all of the good things get forgotten about. That’s where we can’t get lost in it as a team. We’ve got to focus on the things that we did improve on. The things that we didn’t, we need to get better at. And then we have to figure out a way to win this week.”
(Was it particularly hard because not only was it a loss, but against a team you’re battling for a playoff position?) – “It doesn’t matter. I’m probably the only one that really needs to worry about stuff like that. The rest of those guys, they don’t care. They’re worried about winning that game. They’re not sitting there looking at the standings going, ‘Oh, here’s where we’re at.’ We win our games and try to take care of our business and let the chips fall where they may. But in my spot you’re going, ‘Did we just lose control of our own destiny?’ But they don’t need to worry about that stuff.”
(If you can look back to the Bengals game just now; if QB Ryan Tannehill didn’t get hurt, do you kind of look back at the last six games overall?) – “No, because we gave ourselves … We had opportunities. We won a couple of games. We had good games a couple of games, whether it be offense, defense, special teams. It is what it is. You just hate when you’re up and lose a lead and you know what you left on the field. You know some of the situational stuff that didn’t get done right.”
(What do you see from WR Leonte Carroo the last two games, special teams two weeks ago and then yesterday. Do you take some pride in that young player’s development?) – “I’m glad that he got an opportunity. I know that was great to see him just go up and get one. I don’t think we’ve done that enough to where we’ve had moments where a guy you don’t expect goes up and gets a ball like that. The more we have guys do that, the more confidence Ryan has at throwing the ball down the field when it’s a 50-50 jump ball. That’s ideal.”
Cameron Wake – November 25, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Postgame – Indianapolis Colts
Miami Dolphins DE Cameron Wake (Transcribed by Indianapolis Colts)
Re: When Andrew Luck broke contain on third-and-nine:
“I was on the field. I was engaged. Colts – they made a play, we didn’t. Probably one of the bigger plays of the game.”
How hard is he to get down?
“No harder than anybody else. Sacks are hard to get, so – relatively – no big deal.”
This was a big game for you guys: Time of the season, games left, all those types of things. How do you guys bounce back? There are a couple more road games left and this seemed like the one that you could maybe steal from them. Instead, you’re folding back kind of.
“Yeah, it was right there. I mean, everything. It was scripted the way we wanted. Obviously coming off the bye (week), everybody getting a little more time to get fresh; refresh, restart – whatever you needed. You know, the tips were right there, the lead going into the end of the game, defense on the field to close it out – all the things that I would love to have scripted if I had my way. It’s unfortunate they made one more play. I think it’s, obviously, a lot placed on that one play, but there are obviously, probably, 10 other plays throughout the course of the game on both sides of the ball that would have probably eliminated the fact that that was even the situation.”
What were they able to do on the last couple of drives to move the ball down the field so freely when they struggling for a number of series prior to that?
“Yeah, I think I’m very interested to go look at the tape. But obviously, somehow somebody got disconnected. We didn’t get the rush that we needed up front, of course. He was able to escape. So, he had a free field of vision to throw the ball downfield. The way I feel, it’s on us as a front to eliminate that. DB, I’ve never played DB, but I can’t imagine covering people for – I don’t know how long it was – four or five seconds. They were high class receivers, so as a front we’ve got to make sure we do everything we can to keep him boxed in and keep him from being able to do that kind of thing. So it’s unfortunate.”
Is this a game where you tip your cap to Andrew Luck or do you say we let one get away?
“Well, I never take anything away from anybody. But at the same time, you look at some of the plays and you see we shot ourselves in the foot. They made some plays too, not to take away from those guys, but critical moment. That’s something that we’ve got to be the ones to make it harder, I’ll say that.”
Akeem Spence – November 25, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Postgame – Indianapolis Colts
Miami Dolphins DT Akeem Spence (Transcribed by Indianapolis Colts)
On the Andrew Luck third down conversion late in the game:
“…Can’t get it back. Luck made a great move stepping up in the pocket. He’s a big guy, hard to bring down with one hand. That’s a play I got to make. Get our defense off the field and then get our offense the ball back. He just made a great play.”
Those last three drives, what went wrong?
“I mean, they just made more plays than us. They found the open guys, and we didn’t get to him fast enough. The ball was coming out hot; he was just making good throws.”
You guys got off to a rough start defensively, but it seems like things leveled out for a while. You had it where you wanted it until the end. What caused the shifts for you guys?
“Just them making adjustments, them making plays. They made a couple more plays than we did, and we just got to clamp down just like we were doing before half and be able to bat the balls down and be able to put them on the ground. We just didn’t do that enough today and they got us.”
Leonte Carroo – November 25, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Postgame – Indianapolis Colts
Miami Dolphins WR Leonte Carroo (Transcribed by Indianapolis Colts)
Did you high point that ball? It seem like you mossed him a little bit there.
“Yeah, I just went up and made a play.”
What went wrong on the last couple of possessions offensively?
“I don’t know, we just got to finish. That’s it, we just got to finish the game. We just got to outlast them. Too bad at the end of the game they performed better than we did.”
Those last two drives it just seemed like they had a lot of penetration in the backfield. Could anything have been done differently from your end?
“I don’t know what goes on with the offensive line, but I know from a receiver standpoint we just got to finish better. We got to make plays in those opportunities. When our numbers are called we just got to go out there and make plays. At the end of the day, we didn’t win the game, but it could’ve easily been in our hands to be in the situation to win the game.”
Kiko Alonso – November 25, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Postgame – Indianapolis Colts
Miami Dolphins LB Kiko Alonso (Transcribed by Indianapolis Colts)
What happened there on the hit to Andrew Luck?
“Similar to last year, it was third-and-one, like third-and-two or something. He ran to the sticks. There was nothing I could do. I fell to him. Right when I felt him slide, I kind of felt like I gave myself up too. At the end of the day, I don’t think there was anything I could do about it. Maybe I can watch the film and see. From that play, I remember feeling like there was nothing I can do. Because maybe he’s going to go for that first down.”
Did you attempt to put your hands back?
“Yeah. I basically like chest bumped.”
Those last three possessions, you guys got rolling pretty good and then those last three. What was the change for you guys?
“I don’t know, we get to play the game out. That’s all it is.”
How tough is Andrew Luck? That one when Akeem Spence almost had him and he broke contain, that was the ball game.
“We know that Luck is a guy that can extend plays.”
Ryan Tannehill – November 25, 2018 (Postgame)
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Postgame – Indianapolis Colts
Miami Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill (Transcribed by Indianapolis Colts)
How did you feel on the first drive when you lead the team down the field for the touchdown?
“I felt good. I think we came out and did what we wanted to do on that first drive. I stepped up and made some plays. We were able to get into the end zone.”
How did you feel during the course of the game, health-wise, physically? How did it feel for you coming back from a layoff?
“It felt really good. The shoulder wasn’t an issue. I really didn’t even think about it throughout the game. I’m excited for as far as how the shoulder will go.”
Obviously, the last couple drives really spelled the difference in this football game? From where you were standing, what was going on that made it so difficult to move the ball at that point?
“We didn’t execute the calls that came in. They did a good job defending them, we’ve got to give them credit but I still think we had opportunities. We didn’t execute the calls good enough to convert first downs. We were kind of backed up on the field, so coach was trying to just get the ball out of that backed up situation and offensively we didn’t handle it the way we should have.”
Six games left going into this one, an important game for you on the road, it didn’t come out the way you wanted it. How does it feel in the locker room? Your guys’ mindset right now after this game?
“It hurts. This one hurts. The way it went down, the way we felt like we were playing throughout the game. We scored to go up 10 and we were running the ball well and moving the ball efficiently, defense came up with some big stops and then down the stretch we didn’t execute. The way it went down, obviously, really hurts, you’ve to be able to get past it. There’re still five football games in front of us, everything we want still on the table. Obviously, this one hurts. AFC game, on the road, one that we were in a good position to win and to not finish it hurts.”
This game is somewhat similar to the Cincinnati game where you’re up by 17 there and then the bottom kind of falls out, here you’re up by 10 and then the bottom falls out. Is there something similar in those games that closing those games out when you’ve got the lead has been difficult for this team?
“No, I don’t think so. I think in Cincinnati, those plays are on me and I take full responsibility. Today, I think those are kind of fluke, dumb mistakes by me. Today, we just, as a group, when it came down to it at the end, they tightened up on defense. They made some good plays, came off the football and stopped the run. It hurts because we were moving the ball so well on the run game, we’re getting five, six, eight, 10 yards a pop. So we get backed up, we think ‘All right, we should be able to punch this thing out on the ground.’ They did a good job of tightening up their front and making plays there on the line of scrimmage and we just didn’t get it out of there.”
On your series before that, I think you were still leading. On first down it was a pass, on second down it as a pass and then it was a handoff on third down to Kenyan. You were running the ball well. What was the thinking of, ‘We’re running the ball well, so let’s throw it?’
“First down ball we had a screen call and they did a good job of playing the screen. Couldn’t get the ball to the back, he ran around our blocker and I had to throw it away. Second down we had a play action, thinking maybe they were going to step up on the run and [we’d] have an opportunity downfield. They brought some pressure and were able to step up. We just weren’t able to connect. Like I said, we had opportunities there. There were times during the game when we thought the screens would be good. Going into that, we thought the screen would be good and they ended up giving us a little bit different look and playing it really well. You have to give credit to them.”
And as the quarterback on third and 10, way backed up, do you understand the play it safe type of thing or did you want a chance to throw the ball?
“Of course, I understand. I’m a competitor, so I want the ball in my hands and I want to make that play. But I understand the situation obviously we were in. We were inside our own 10, long yardage situation. They had been playing soft coverage, sinking everyone underneath in those long yardage situations. The percentages are low. Thinking, ‘Hey, if we can get a block on one guy and make one guy miss.’ There were a couple situations where we did run the ball and were able to get really close runs. I totally understand the call there but as a competitor it’s tough. You want that ball in your hands.”
Did you ever appeal the case? Say, ‘Hey, I want to throw.’
“It’s tough to do that when you’re standing in the middle of the field and he’s on the sidelines. My job is to execute the calls that come in and do the best that I can. Like I said, I understand the call. I think it had a chance to work. I had a light block, blockers were soft. We weren’t able to get off on the double team off on MIKE and that guy ended up making the play. If we execute the play to how it’s called, we’ve got a shot. Obviously, it’s not going to be an easy first down. But (Kenyan) Drake had made some guys miss, he caught a short pass earlier. It shouldn’t have worked, but he made some guys miss. That was a third-and-4 or third-and-16 and we were one yard short on a short check-down and blocking downfield. Those long yardage situations are tough, guys are going to have to do something kind of special to get that first down if you chuck it down underneath. We felt like we had an opportunity.”
Did you kind of worry that you wouldn’t get the ball back, knowing who was on the other field?
“Honestly, I thought out defense would come up with a stop. I had full faith in them. I have a ton of respect for Andrew (Luck) and I know what he’s done, but I have faith in this team and this defense and we had a good punt. Matt (Haak) had a couple big punts late, kind of pushed them as far back as we could. We had them at third and nine there I’m thinking ‘hey, we’re getting this stop, get this ball back and we’re going to go win this game’. But they made a good play, stepped up and found the open guy.”
What happened on the touchdown pass to Leonte Carroo?
“Scrambled, they covered what we had called. I was able to get outside. Saw the safety coming down and he had leverage on his guy crossing and just kind of waved him to keep going and put it up. He made a heck of a play going up and taking away from the guy and finishing in the end zone.”
You threw it about 44 yards, did you have no concern it would get there? That’s a pretty deep ball.
“Yeah, that’s not too far.”
How did the shoulder respond to that?
“Good. Really good. I had no issues with the shoulder.”
