Head Coach Ben McAdoo
Postgame vs. Miami, August 12, 2016
Q: What did you take away from how Ryan (Nassib) played tonight?
A: I think overall, as an offense, Ryan was right in line with everybody else tonight. It was a sloppy performance. Anytime you have six balls on the ground and two INT’s, it was not what we were looking for.
Q: What’s your assessment of how you ran the ball tonight?
A: I thought the first half we came out, we wanted to run the football, wanted to work the outside zone a little bit just to get that going there. They were running some wide-nine techniques in their front that made it challenging early on. We had a bunch of plays, we may have had 44 or so at half, so we felt like we were moving the ball and getting quality reps there from an offensive standpoint, we just didn’t finish the drive. We had the ball on the ground there on the goal line and we have to take care of the ball better and finish drives.
Q: Were you happy about what you saw from the first team defense?
A: I thought the first team defense took a solid step tonight, coming out and playing with each other for the first time…encouraging.
Q: What’s Eli Apple’s status?
A: It’s early…it doesn’t look to be anything serious at this point.
Q: How about Sterling Shepard?
A: Same.
Q: What do you think happened with Nassib in the second quarter?
A: Yeah, he was playing a little better with the first offensive line in there, then we started getting a little bit of pressure. Some throws were coming up short. Again, we need to go back and look at the tape and evaluate it from there.
Q: How about for yourself, was there any excitement in the first game as head coach?
A: Yeah, I was excited. I think everybody in the locker room was excited. It was the first time to get out and go against another team, it always provides some good energy.
Q: Who called the plays tonight?
A: Sully (Coach Sullivan) called the plays tonight.
Q: How do you think it went?
A: It was fine…we need to execute better.
Q: How did the whole process feel?
A: We had six balls on the ground and two turnovers. I’m not pleased about any of that.
Q: Did the weather delay throw off any of the preparation?
A: We changed a couple of things. We adjusted and improvised with the delay.
Q: What went into the decision to not play Odell Beckham?
A: He came out, we had intentions of playing him in a handful of plays. We got back in, we had the delay and I decided not to play him.
Q: What did you think of B.J. Goodson?
A: B.J. was flying around. I thought he had a good night. I think he ended up cramping up at the end there. But he was flying around, making plays and looking like he was having fun. It was good to get him a bunch of reps.
Q: Did anything change your mind about the backup offensive linemen after tonight?
A: I think we need more work. I think we have a good group of guys right there. We need to go out, we need to do more work. We have a day off tomorrow, a transition day coming back the following day. We need to go put the pads on and get to work.
Q: What do you think the reason was for the six balls on the ground?
A: We’ll have to find out. We haven’t had quarterback-center exchange problems at camp and we had a couple of those tonight and it looked like we had a bad pocket there on the last one. Looked like the quarterback put the ball in the breadbasket but the pocket didn’t look very clean.
Q: What did you think about Special Teams tonight?
A: I think we had some good effort and energy early. I think Brad Wing did a nice job. As the game got later, we got sloppy. There were a couple penalties that we can’t have that really flipped the field on us and we’ve got to eliminate those.
Q: Severity of Geremy Davis’ hamstring?
A: Doesn’t look severe at this point but things can change overnight.
Q: How promising was Owa Odighizuwa tonight?
A: It was good to see him get some nice rushes in there. We’ll have to look at a couple of plays in the run game. He was active, and Owa’s a guy…he just has to let it rip. He’s a talented young man, he’s a good looking sucker, and he just has to go out there and let it rip and play fast and play aggressive.
Q: What did you think of the pressure from the first team defense?
A: I liked it, I’m all for it.
Q: Any update on Victor Cruz?
A: No, we’ll take a look, hopefully Sunday.
