MIAMI DOLPHINS QUOTES Monday September 23rd, 2013 Offensive Coordinator Mike Sherman (On the final touchdown and how it unfolded and if Ryan Tannehill part in the decision process)– “I think (Ryan) liked the final play. We had put goal-line on the field. We were going to run that play. I think he came over and said, ‘I’d like to run that play,’ but we had already called that play because of the personnel out there, which made it good because he likes that play. It’s one of my favorite plays. It all worked out.” (On if the final touchdown play goes back to his Texas A&M days) – “Yeah, we’ve run that play. We’ve practiced that play a bunch. He’s thrown it a lot, so I would think he would like that play.” (On if the tight end makes a one-handed catch when practicing the touchdown play) –“Sometimes he does. I thought it was a great pass by Ryan (Tannehill), and it was a good catch because they really defended it to a certain degree. We motioned out, they walked their linebacker outside and put him in position, a pretty good position, a pretty good alignment position. What Dion (Sims) did, he came inside, faked the block and we had (Charles) Clay who ran the touchdown last week fake a good hard run. The line came off selling the run, and when Sims went inside to cut off the defensive end the linebacker who was covering him fell inside covering the run. (Sims) was able to get leverage outside, and Ryan kind of lofted it up and put it up for the catch.” (On if Dion Sims was being interfered with during his touchdown catch) – “That’s up to the officials to make that call, and since we caught it there was no interference on their part (laughs).” (On the team executing in the redzone) – “It’s really players making plays, in my mind. It’s all about the players stepping up and making plays that are there to be made. I think we have guys who have stepped up and made plays when they need to. There’s no smoke and mirrors. It’s about players stepping up and making plays. I’ll take my hat off to them and their ability to have the confidence that they have in each other. I think the familiarity that our quarterback has with the receivers and the receivers with him at this point is higher than it was a year ago possibly. So I think it was just players making plays.” (On the pass protection during the game) – “I don’t think our quarterback is getting hit a lot. We are giving up a lot of sacks, a lot more than we want to give up. That’s not all on the offensive line. You can attribute two of those sacks to me. We had a play-action pass we probably shouldn’t have had on. We pulled the guard and we were susceptible to a slot blitz. I wasn’t anticipating that to happen, and it happened. You can put that one on me. There was another shot play where we are trying to take a shot on Mike Wallace, and we had a young tight end across, and I hadn’t work on that particular look. I wasn’t anticipating the look that they had, and he was kind of in between a rock and a hard place. I’ll take credit for two of those sacks. Our (running) backs need to step up and do a better job in protection, and our line missed one or two. I don’t think our quarterback is getting hit, but we are giving up too many sacks, obviously.” (On the process of deciding to call the final play) – “We just had that conversation.” (On the final touchdown play) – “I don’t know what he said or what happened, but that was our one-yard line play we were going to call.” (On if he was going to call that play on the final touchdown regardless) – “Yeah, that play was called. He probably did recommend it because it was one of his favorite plays, and I called it because I know it’s one of his favorite plays. But I knew he would have success with that play. I’m not contradicting what he said because I know it is one of his favorite plays. I’ve been with him for a long time. I know what he likes down there.” (On if the tight ends and Rishard Matthews making catching on the final drives, if they were the primary receivers for the plays and if so what gave him confidence in them) – “People ask me that, what about Dion (Sims) first catch and Michael Egnew’s first catch and Matthews catch. When they are out there, I honestly don’t think about who’s catching the ball. We just call the play based on coverage’s we think, and if they are on the field we expect them to catch the ball. If they are active, we expect them to step up and make the play. The fact that Dion Sims is a rookie making his first catch, that Matthews made four catches and converted third downs for us, he’s out there, he’s in the progression and he’s going to make those plays. I’m not worried about who’s in there. If they are in there, I expect them to make the play. They were part of the progression. It wasn’t earmarked that they catch the ball, but because of what the coverage dictated they caught the ball.” (On his assessment of the progress of the running game) – “Well the game was a funny game in many ways. It was a funny game of we never really kind of got in sync. We had three possessions in the first half. The first run they slid everybody over there on the first play. I don’t like to have a lot of checks early in the game, but we should have probably checked that one and gone the other way. So we started out with some negative yardage on that first run, but we didn’t get a whole lot of opportunities, I think 16 snaps in the first half, and seven of those 16 were in the last drive for a field goal. We never really got into the flow of the running game, and they were holding onto the ball. That kind of contributed a little to it as well. Lamar (Miller) hits that long run. Then we are in-and-out of it a little bit. It never really felt like we got it unleashed. I felt like we had some shots, then we had a penalty on one, but I never really got a feel for the running game in this ball game.” (On the decision to have Mike Gillislee active) – “We thought he could help our special teams to a certain degree.” (On if the spread and hurry up is the team’s best offense) – “I’ll say this, the situation stuff I think we’ve had success with. I don’t think Coach (Joe) Philbin gets enough credit for the situations he puts us in. The fact that we are not penalized very much, he is largely responsible, in my mind, for that because he is a stickler in practice of talking about every penalty we had from the previous practice is posted, talked about and they watch it. As far as the situations, we practice every situation known to man. There are very few situations that come up in the context of a game that we haven’t practiced. There’s even been times, the Indianapolis game and the drive before the half (against Atlanta), we’ve practiced this the other day. They even talked about it on the field. We practice just about every situation. As for as what is our strength, I think (Brandon) Gibson certainly brings something to the table when he’s on the field. I thought he played a very good game both as a pass receiver and as a blocker in this ball game. Having him on the field is certainly a plus. Having (Charles) Clay on the field is certainly a plus, but I do think we have a balanced offense. You just don’t know what package it’s going to be the hot package that week. I also think you have to lineup in two running backs as well and two tight ends as well. We’ll continue to work them, and you lean toward the one that’s hot in a game.” (On the makeup of the team and how guys drafted by the team are stepping up and making plays) – “There are some guys that have stepped up and made some plays that have joined the club. I give them a lot of credit for that. It’s nice to see (Michael) Egnew to have his opportunity in this ball game, just the reception he had. I thought he made some nice blocks. He had a hard rookie year, and he’s really coming into his own. I’m really proud of the progress that he’s made. (Charles) Clay obviously has assumed a role of leadership on this team as well as bringing his talent to fruition. He’ll continue to get better. There are certainly some things he can improve upon, but he certainly has proven he can play this league. A lot of the other younger guys are stepping up. I think our veteran players have done a great job trying to lead them and showing them the direction they need to go. We certainly are a young football team, so certainly not a lot of older guys leading the way, but the ones that we do have, the Mike Pouncey’s, the Richie Incognito’s of the world, have done a great job of leadership for these young guys.” (On if Ryan Tannehill needs to run a little more to avoid sacks) – “He ran for a key first down in that two-minute situation. I thought that was huge for us. We had just about everybody covered there, and he ran and got us the first down in that situation. There are some opportunities he could maybe step up a little quicker in the pocket. He’s trying to do that a little bit more. He hung onto a read a one point during a sack where he had Mike (Wallace) on one side and (Brandon) Gibson on the same side, and I think he had (Charles) Clay open on the other side. He was waiting on those guys, and it really clouded up. If it was cloudy on this side, he probably should have gone to the other side and gone through his progressions a little bit quicker. He kind of was hanging on guys a second too long. As far as opportunities to run, I don’t know if he had a ton of running opportunities in the game. A lot of times the fronts twisting people and moving people around, I didn’t see a whole lot of opportunities to run in this ball game.” (On how big of a hurdle it is for Ryan Tannehill to clear by leading a team back from behind to victory) – “I think it’s one of many hurdles he has to clear to be that quarterback. I understand Ryan has confidence in himself, and I think the fact he’s demonstrated, I don’t think he had any doubt in his mind what he was able to do. He never has. That’s the strength of Ryan Tannehill. That’s the belief he’s always had in himself. Regardless of the consequences or the circumstances, he’s always believed in himself. But I think what has happened is, I think the belief system now becomes a little more contagious. Other guys say if we are in this situation again, we’ve done this before and we can do it again. We’ve been here before. When you have a reference point, which now we have some reference points where we’ve been here, we’ve done this. Maybe there’s a calming influence and acquired confidence that overcome us and allows us an opportunity to do this again and again. I think that’s what you see when you see teams go from average to good. They have a calming influence and an quite confidence about themselves so they can achieve certain things at certain points. I think maybe that’s what could possibly happen. We could elevate ourselves to that point.” (On clarification for previous question on the final play call from win vs. Atlanta) – “The clock was running and I said the next play will be this because the clock was running. When they called timeout, I said let’s put goal line on the field we’ll run this play. At the same time Ryan (Tannehill) came over and said, ‘Can we run this play?’ It’s already in. That was a done deal. It was already called, but it just shows we’re on the same page. There was an original call (that would have been called) if the clock was running because we couldn’t get goal line people on the field at the time. The clock was going to continue to run, for that personnel group we had a play, but once they called time out we sent our goal line people on the field, he ran over and said, ‘Can we run this,’ and it was already called.”
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 23:56:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015