Gase’s focused mind has one issue: Falcons
DAVIE — Adam Gase has a simple answer for every issue involving the Miami Dolphins, whether the situation is good, bad or downright scandalous.
“It’s the NFL, man. It’s a league of distractions. You move on.”
That’s what the coach said Monday at a hurried news conference to address the resignation of an assistant over the appearance of drug use.
Gase might just as well have said the same thing when Hurricane Irma postponed a game and sent the Dolphins scurrying out of state. He could have said it when Lawrence Timmons skipped out on the team on the night before a game, or when the
linebacker was reinstated and returned to the starting lineup without public explanation. Or when Miami’s starting quarterback was lost for the season to injury in August.
There’s another game coming up. Get ready. Move on. That is Gase’s personal credo.
His coping mechanism, too.
What else would you expect? A man doesn’t become an NFL head coach at 37 if his focus tends to waver.
What else would he think? Gase’s father-inlaw, Joe Vitt, was an assistant coach in the league for more than 30 years and was hired by the Dolphins as a team consultant in April. On top of that, Gase got his first break in the business as an entrylevel recruiting assistant to Nick Saban at Michigan State and LSU. He learned a lot about how to operate as a coach back there, and he learned it fast.
The screws are really tightening, however, in Gase’s second season as Dolphins boss.
Look at this one October Sunday alone.
Pregame, the Dolphins abide to a new rule requiring them either to stand for the national anthem or stay in the tunnel, a rule that Gase unilaterally imposes, later telling reporters, “I don’t need a reason. That’s what I wanted to do.”
In game, the Dolphins scramble for a 16-10 win over Tennessee with many fans chanting for backup quarterback Matt Moore to replace Jay Cutler. “We’re not going to take public polls,” is Gase’s response to that.
Postgame, Gase is either reviewing fresh game tape or taking a moment to relax when he gets a phone call at 10:45 p.m. with the news that Chris Foerster, Miami’s offensive line coach, has committed a firing offense. There’s a video on the internet showing Foerster snorting white powder off a desktop with a rolled-up $20 bill.
Was Foerster doing that at his Dolphins office in Davie? Were the Dolphins aware of any previous problem the longtime assistant might have had with substance abuse? Gase offered no insight on those questions Monday. Whether he has those answers or is trying to get them or even wants to know is an exploration of issues that have nothing to do with getting ready for the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.
Finding or promoting a replacement for Foerster, that matters greatly to Gase. Igniting a Miami offense that produced just one touchdown against the Titans that came without the help of a defensive takeaway, that’s highest priority, too. We’re talking a coach who calls his own plays, a job that most NFL head coaches delegate.
Gase takes it all on, handles it, steamrolls it, with an unshakable sense of responsibility that grows and grows and grows as the problems pile to ridiculous proportions.
How’s he holding up? The standings say Gase is all right at 2-2, and that a dozen or more coaches around the NFL are in worse shape. You are what your record says you are, as Bill Parcells put it.
These are real men, however, and real relationships. Gase called Foerster “a really good coach” on Monday, and that was after all of this broke. The two talked late Sunday night, knowing full well that Foerster was finished.
“It’s not fun, especially when you’re close to somebody,” said Gase, who added Foerster to his staff just three days after being named Miami’s head coach.
They worked together in San Francisco in 2008 when Gase, only 30, was an offensive assistant to head coach Mike Nolan, and Foerster, already a 17-year NFL veteran, was the 49ers’ offensive line coach. Clearly, there was great respect for Foerster’s abilities and for his work ethic, or else Gase wouldn’t have turned to him as a foundational piece of this new project in Miami.
The show must go on, though, and the Dolphins’ offensive line continues to play a major role, just as it did in 2013, when the Bullygate investigation divided the locker room and Joe Philbin had no idea how to handle it.
Gase will move his team past the Foerster shock much more quickly. He’ll try to clean it up, the way coaches talk about cleaning up missed assignments and turnovers. This 2017 Dolphins season might seem crueler than others, but Gase doesn’t see it that way.
He sees the Falcons, nothing else. He sees a head coach in the mirror, the only one Miami’s got.
He sees himself doing this for many, many years, too. In a league of distractions, and in a job that’s always threatening to overwhelm him.