Ryan Tannehill – June 13, 2017
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Tuesday, June 13, 2017
QB Ryan Tannehill
(How would you describe your accuracy and ball placement in today’s practice and then also since the start of OTAs overall?) – “I’d have to go back and look at it. There were some throws I was really happy with and some that I’d like to have back. I think that’s probably pretty standard for every practice throughout the whole year. There’s always something where you want the ball a little higher or a little lower, a little more outside, whatever it may be. So it’s something we’re constantly looking at. We’re looking at on tape. We’re giving ourselves grades on ball location and then trying to improve it.”
(Head Coach Adam Gase said that you are hard on yourself. How is the ‘hard on myself’ angle sort of developed throughout your career?) – “I think I’ve always been, tried to be, hard on myself. I think as soon as you think you’ve got it, that’s when you run into trouble. You’ve seen a lot of good players over their careers get to the point where they think they have it and that’s when they start to fall off. I’m constantly trying to improve. I’m constantly trying to take little steps. It’s not one big step you’re going to take. It’s not like in a two-week period you’re going to make some giant leap. It’s a series of consequential small steps that happen over the course of an offseason, over the course of training camp and throughout the season. So you’re just constantly pushing at yourself, seeing the things you need to improve upon, seeing them on tape, taking the notes, taking the time to realize what you’re doing, seeing what you need to do to improve those things and then going out and doing it.”
(Head Coach Adam Gase said just now that RB Jay Ajayi has really improved his route running. He didn’t know if he worked off campus with you or somebody else, but did you work with him and if not, what’s the difference you see thus far?) – “Yes, Jay put in time, starting back in March with us. We had the receivers out there. Jay came back in town. He was in California training for a while. He came back and was out there working with us. So I’ve seen him, I think take particular care in his routes and have an effort into each route. I see him run around and he’ll come back and talk to me ‘Hey, what did you think about here?’ If he doesn’t like the way he ran it, he’ll run another one. With running backs a lot of times, those things can get overlooked as far as the details of route running and being that weapon; but I think he wants to expand his role in this offense. We use our backs out of the backfield a lot. I think it’s a big weapon for us and he’s a guy that can do it. He catches the ball well. He understands concepts well and so it’s something that we look to get him the ball a lot this year out of the backfield.”
(When you look at yourself and RB Jay Ajayi as a one-two punch running and passing – I know you’re not the only ones involved in those aspects – what would you like to see you guys do better this season than you did last year, whether it’s sustaining drives, third down, red zone? That kind of stuff.) – “I think as an offense we’ve got to stay on the field longer. I think we didn’t have enough plays as an offense and we’re trying to combat that in a number of different ways but ultimately it comes down to getting first downs. We’ve got to be able to get first downs, convert on third down and keep drives alive. Find a way. It’s not always going to be scheduled plays. You’re going to have to make plays on scramble drills. Receivers are going to have to catch and run. There are a lot of things that go into it but ultimately it comes down to putting yourself in third-and-manageable situations and then converting on those third-and-manageable when you get them. When you get third-and-6 or less – which we feel really confident if we get third-and-6 or less then we should be able to convert a high percentage of those – we have to make it happen. We have to do what it takes to make those plays and keep drives alive.”
(Why are you and RB Jay Ajayi better equipped this year than last year to make that happen, to extend the drives and convert the third-and-6’s?) – “I think Jay’s second year, my second year in the offense, where we’re all more familiar in what we’re doing and how we’re attacking. I think he – like you just talked about – he is taking a step, as far as a receiver out of the backfield, where we were splitting him out wide. We saw him catch a pass today split out wide, down in the red zone, or he’s coming out of the backfield. Or even my check counts. Check downs can be huge plays where second-and-10, you call a pass, it gets covered up, you dump it down and now you’re in third-and-3 because he gets 7 yards. I think that’s one area where we look to improve upon. If we don’t like what we see down field, then get the ball to the back and let him make a play.”
(It’s the second year in this same offense. Where are the noticeable improvements that you’re seeing from your unit?) – “I think speed of play, first and foremost. I think last year, we were trying to do the no-huddle, but we struggled with speed as far as getting up, communicating quickly and running the play. This year we’ve put a lot of emphasis on that, being able to communicate quickly, not over-communicate things, but communicate clearly and get up and go. I think from OTA 1 to now we’ve seen a big increase of that, and we look to continue that throughout training camp. Last year we kind of got away from the no huddle, like Week 4 or 5 right there. So hopefully we can keep that going throughout this year and put pressure on defenses in that way.”
(Why didn’t the no huddle work last year? What was it that wasn’t working?) – “I just don’t think that we knew as an offense all the details of what we needed to do to make it happen quickly. We were able to do it, but we weren’t doing it quickly, and when you don’t do it quickly, you might as well just huddle and everyone get some time to think about exactly what they have to do. The whole point of no huddle is to keep the pressure on the defense and if you’re allowing defensive linemen to sub in and sub out and not keeping that heat on them, then you might as well just huddle. So I think that’s kind of the crossroads we hit last year.”
(What about Head Coach Adam Gase has made you feel more comfortable making the off-schedule play?) – “I think he just encourages me and what I see. He’s always supportive of … obviously he coaches me and corrects me obviously when things aren’t done right, but he’s a big supporter of whatever we feel – what you see – then you can’t think about it. You’ve got to just let it rip and make it happen. So that’s something I’ve been trying to work on this offseason is ‘Hey, don’t think about it. Just play what you see and let it rip.’”
