Head Coach Joe Philbin (Opening statement) – “I thought we had a good practice today. We devoted a majority of the time to fundamentals and some one-on-one competitive situations. We also had a chance to work on our two-minute offense, both at the end of the half and the end of the game. I told the players just not that they’ve been at it hard since July 21st. I think the bye is coming at an appropriate time. We’ll be ready to go on Monday when we come back and begin our preparation for Buffalo.” (On what he was looking for at practice with it being the last practice for a while) - “As I mentioned, one of the things we spent, we had a couple of extra individual periods. We didn’t look (at) a ton of schematic things. It was more about going from an individual period and then to a competitive, sometime one-on-one period. We did that wide receivers-defensive backs, linebackers-tight ends, those type of things, offensive line-defensive line as well as some situational work.” (On the bye week earlier in the season helping teams fix problems) - “I think this is a good time for it. As I think mentioned yesterday, we had five preseason games. We played 10. We have 11 to go. From a calendar wise, if you just start it in July 21st when the players get here to when the regular season calendar ends, it comes about the right spot in time. Obviously we have some things that we need to get corrected and fixed. We just need to take a breath and take a look at where we are at.” (On if AFC East games carry any more importance) – “Well yeah. They are division games. Based on the NFL tiebreaker system, they carry a little bit more weight, sure.” (On if AFC games carry more weight) - “Yeah, they carry a little more weight. Every game, we don’t do anything different in regard to preparation for a game. Every single game, the opportunity to play is very, very critical. From a situational standpoint, we have to be ready to play every single game that we play, but we also understand in the big scheme of things that there are tiebreaker rules that impact standings. We don’t necessarily put together a better third down gameplan because the tiebreaker has some impact, but we certainly understand that. There’s a difference.” (On if he will get some time off during the bye week) – “Yeah, absolutely. I hope to drive my daughter to school over there one day and maybe watch her dance and something, do stuff like that. Yeah, absolutely. I want to spend time with my family, absolutely.” (On Ryan Tannehill being a proactive film studier and if he will have to tell Tannehill to take some time off this week) - “I think everybody has to do what they are comfortable doing. I’m sure that he’ll have a chance to get away, and it’s good for everybody to step back a little bit and get a new perspective on things. Sometimes you get caught up and never get away from it, sometimes you can lose sight of the big picture. I hope he has a chance to get away.” (On if the attitude going into the bye week would be different coming off of a victory instead of a loss) - “Not necessarily. I think everybody in football after five weeks, I know us specifically after five games, we have certain strengths and certain weaknesses. Had things ended a little differently in this prior game on the last minute or two of the game, we still would have a lot of things that would need to be worked on. We have things to work. We have some strengths. We have some weaknesses. We are where we are. You know that saying, you have to deal with reality as it is. We are a 3-2 football team. We have a division opponent coming into our stadium. We have to get our team prepared to play.” (On what he expects from players during time off) - “I want them to use their time wisely. As I said to them, they earned this time off. They’ve been at it hard since July 21. This isn’t a gift or a gimmie. They deserved it. They earned it to take care of their bodies. Their bodies, they can’t do their jobs without taking care of themselves physically. Be wise with their time they spend off. I’m not dictating how they spend their time. That’s their time. When they are in this building, I dictate the schedule. When they are out of this building, they dictate their own schedule. Hopefully they can connect with family and friends but use good judgment in anything they do.” (On if there is a way to quantify what Cam Wake means to the team physically and emotionally) - “He’s an important part of the football team, there is no question about it. He’s a true professional. He’s extremely hard-working. He brings good energy into the building every single day, onto the practice field and on the game field. He’s an important part of the team, no doubt.” (On how disruptive Cam Wake could have been against Baltimore on Sunday) – “It’s hard to project. Certainly he has some history of production on film of being a good football player and being disruptive. But each game is a different game. Who knows what they would have done. They might have double-teamed him. It’s hard to project that stuff, so can’t really speculate.” (On if the game is moving in a direction where kickoffs no longer exist) – “Again, I think the NFL does a great job studying players’ safety and designing rules that protect the football players on the field. I think there are percentages I don’t have in front of me of how many touchbacks. I know ours is around 50 percent. We kick the ball off a number of times, and they brought it out a bunch of times the other day, so we’ll see.” (On if he would eliminate kickoffs if it was up to him) – “Again, I haven’t studied it this year as much. Usually at the end of the year I take a look at all of the stats and what the touchback percentage is and what the injury is to sit here and make a judgment today I don’t think would be wise.” (On what he has thought about Reshad Jones in pass coverage) – “He’s done some good things, but I think he has some things he needs to improve upon, no question about it. Overall as a whole I think our unit pass defense we’ve given up too many passing plays. That’s a focal point. I know the staff has looked at it, all of the passes and completions over 10 yards. We’ve studied why. Is it a specific coverage? Is it a specific pass concept that’s hurting us? Is it a specific player that is hurting us? We are looking at all of those things. Is it a lack of pressure? As you know, there are a multitude of factors, but certainly we’ve got to do better in pass defense.” (On what point he’s concerned about Dimitri Patterson’s heath and his availability to the team) – “One of the factors you are always judging players on his availability. We’ll see how he responds and comes along, hopefully sooner as opposed to later. We can’t put a player out there until he is ready to go.” (On how Charles Clay has played so far) – “I really liked the way he’s emerged as a football player. I like the way he’s blocking. I like the way he’s catching the football. Yeah, I think he’s doing a nice job.” (On the reasoning of having a short practice today despite having lots to work on) – “That was part of it. I designed the schedule a while ago. I stuck with it. I felt it was the right thing for the team to do. We had a chance yesterday to meet and do a lot of corrections on tape. We had a chance again today and meet and go onto the practice field, which is important. I think it’s important that they get away. We kind of have an extra day, so to speak, next week of practice so we can kind of work on some of the special situations we feel need to be addressed.” (On how the team can protect Ryan Tannehill better from being sacked) – “Blocking is still the foundation. Pass protection in the passing game comes down to blocking, number one. There is different timing you can use. There are different launch points you can use. There are different pass concepts. We are going to be looking at everything the next couple of days. We have already begun that process, but we are going to look at all different ways of improving our, a) protection and b) productivity in the pass game. ” (On if the extra time will be used for creativity or thinking outside of the box with pass protection) – “Oh yeah. Again we have a comprehensive system. I believe we have a number of different ways we can throw the ball, a number of different pass concepts. Sometimes more always isn’t better, but we are going to look at every avenue possible to improve our protection.” (On anything that has particularly pleased him about the tight ends or wide receivers) – “I like the balance that we’ve had. I’ve always believed in balance offensively. You guys could correct me if I’m wrong, and I’m sure you guys would be glad to do that if I’m wrong, but I think our leading receiver has 25 catches and our fourth leading receiver has 22. There’s kind of a good cluster there. I think the balance is good. We don’t have one guy we are always honed in on. I think we have a number of guys we can distribute the ball to. I like the balance, and I think they’ve caught the ball relatively well. There’s still room for improvement there.” (On Danny Watkins improvement) – “I think he’s shown signs of improvement and development. Today he probably got more reps in a team setting than he has. As you know, it’s a little bit of a challenge when you are in a game preparation week, the guys you project to play the vast majority of the snaps are going to devote the practice snaps to those guys. We will take a close look at how he did today, and obviously we are anxious to see him develop.” (On if Brandon Fields is having the best year of his career) – “He’s punted the ball very well. I think on paper right now it’s right up there with the best.” (On what he is seeing with the chemistry between Ryan Tannehill and Mike Wallace and how far they’ve come along) – “I think the other day, I thought for the most part they were on the same page. They connected. He was target an awful lot based on the coverage’s that we were getting. We thought that was the best course of action. It’s still a work in progress as it is with Brandon Gibson and all the other new guys. I see strides of improvement” (On Mike Wallace’s attitude) – “I think he’s coming out on the practice field and working hard, very hard. He’s been good in the locker room. Usually those are good signs. We are big believers in the correlation between practice and performance. He’s doing some good things.” (On if he still has confidence in the plan of what the team did with offensive linemen during the past offseason) – “I like the group of guys we have. I believe in the guys. They are an extremely hard-working group. I’ve said many times and I’ve believed this to be true, while there is certainly room for improvement, they need to do a better job. There is a lot of positions on this football team that fall into that category. They are accountable individuals. They understand that, and they are going to go out on this practice field, work hard every single day to improve and give us A-type effort. I expect they will improve.” (On what he’s seen from Olivier Vernon the past couple of weeks) – “He’s been more productive. He’s been playing a lot of snaps of football. He’s playing an awful lot, and he’s giving us a really good effort. I think we’ve seen production in both the run and the pass game, which is a good thing.”
Posted on: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 02:05:34 +0000
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