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Q. Did you get enough production out of your outside receivers, in particular WR Miles Austin and WR Riley Cooper at 97 snaps and no catches?


CHIP KELLY: Yeah, we had a couple of drops in there. I don’t think Coop [Riley Cooper] was targeted, so sometimes that’s not the receiver’s fault in terms of where his production is; he can’t do anything except run his routes and run his plays. But we missed Miles on the one, obviously the crossing route on the drag for the interception, and then we had a drop going down the other way. And then we had the one that we threw to him but we didn’t get the foot down inbounds.



Q. Should Austin have done a better job of dragging his foot inbounds there?


CHIP KELLY: I mean, from the angle we saw on film, it was extremely close, but his foot was out, so it was out.



Q. Should Austin have done a better job making an effort for the pass? It seemed like he wasn’t ready for it.


CHIP KELLY: He was reading the coverage as he went across, and we probably shouldn’t have thrown the ball is what we shouldn’t have done.



Q. What can you tell us about QB Sam Bradford?


CHIP KELLY: I don’t have any information; I meet with the trainers after this every Monday.



Q. You mentioned a concussion.


CHIP KELLY: Yeah.



Q. But is the shoulder a non-issue?


CHIP KELLY: They didn’t say anything about that. They just said he hurt his shoulder but he’s in concussion protocol, so that’s the thing we’ll deal with. And then again, I’ll meet with [the trainers] after this meeting today, so I meet with [the trainers] probably around 2:00 or 2:30.


Q. As you put a game plan together today, is it with QB Mark Sanchez as the quarterback?


CHIP KELLY: We don’t meet until after this, so we get all that information and then we start our game planning.



Q. Some of the players talked yesterday about detail and attention to detail. The way you practice, does that encourage attention to detail? You don’t stop and correct things, you do it in meetings?


CHIP KELLY: Yeah, very much so it does. Yeah, it does.



Q. Do you know when Bradford’s concussion occurred?


CHIP KELLY: I think on that play.



Q. Do you know that for certain?


CHIP KELLY: I haven’t talked to Sam since the game, so I couldn’t tell you for certain, but I was told on that play. That’s what I was told.



Q. It sounded like the snap was the issue on the missed field goal and the punt block. Is LS Jon Dorenbos still going to be the long snapper?


CHIP KELLY: Yeah, I mean, we need to clean some things up. We obviously didn’t — the ball on the punt and the long snap were in the right spot, but we need to clean that whole operation up.
 
Q. Is it going to be with Dorenbos?

CHIP KELLY: Yeah.



Q. On the fourth-down play, when Sanchez threw it to WR Jordan Matthews, Sanchez was a couple yards short of the first down. Was that just because he didn’t have enough time to see the other guys?


CHIP KELLY: He didn’t have enough time. We had four verticals going. [WR] Riley Cooper actually was coming open coming down the seam, [and so] was [TE] Zach Ertz; [he] was a single-high safety. But when Mark got to the top of his drop, the defensive end was in his face, so I think he had to get the ball off. It was a four-man rush, but we didn’t do a good enough job protecting him for giving him an opportunity to get it. So on that play, we ran four guys deep and we had one guy as the check-down if they ran out of there in coverage. But he really didn’t get a chance to get to the top of his drop and set his feet and throw the football.



Q. How much different is the offense with Bradford as opposed to Sanchez?


CHIP KELLY: I don’t think it’s much different.



Q. Will you game plan differently with –


CHIP KELLY: We don’t, no.



Q. How do you come off of the inconsistency up front with the O-line, they played so well in Dallas and then come back and just struggled?


CHIP KELLY: I think that’s a question for everybody in this league. Every week is a different week. Every opponent is a different opponent. You know, with the exception of about four or five teams right now, I think everybody is kind of doing the same thing. You look one week and they look like gangbusters, and then the next week it’s not so much. Green Bay was out and won six straight, now they’ve lost three straight.

But that’s what we try to preach all the time. There’s not any game changing or turning points in seasons or anything like that. Every single week expresses itself differently in terms of who you’re playing and what you’re getting matched up in. Some teams match up better than other teams with guys, but it just comes down to consistency, I think, especially on the offensive side of the ball. We were just so inconsistent, which is really kind of uncharacteristic of us, especially in the last couple of weeks. We had a holding penalty on the naked play on ‘that’ side when we’re over on ‘this’ side it’s a 12-yard gain. Instead of a 12-yard gain we lost 22 [yards] because we’re -10 on a play where we’re not even involved in the play.

So it’s the details, and the team that does a better job ends up victorious. And I think, right now, 80 out of 145 games in this league are decided by a touchdown or less; it’s 55 percent of the games. So it can literally come down to one play, and they make one more play than we do, then you end up on the wrong side of it. But we lost to Atlanta by a field goal or less; we lost to Washington by a field goal or less; we lost this game by a point. So if someone makes one more play, then we have an opportunity, but we didn’t.

Those aren’t excuses, but it’s what we really have to understand [is] how important each play is when you’re out there and [how] the attention to detail and doing the little things right are the difference between us winning and losing. We’ve come up on the right side four times and we’ve come up on the down side five times.



Q. Why is attention to detail such a problem?


CHIP KELLY: I think it’s a problem with everybody. I mean, that’s what the nature of the game is. If you’re a little — if you’re one more play better than your opponent, you’re going to win. That’s what it comes down to right now in terms of these stretch games that have been really very critical for us. But you could say the same thing from the games we’ve won. So I think you always say it’s one play away when you lose a game, but it’s the same thing when you win the game. Mistakes are still there when you win the game. It’s just the team that can execute the best is going to win on Sundays in this league.



Q. How much is the responsibility on the coach when there’s a breakdown in detail?


CHIP KELLY: It’s on all of us. Are we teaching it the right way in the classroom? Are we teaching it the right way on the field? Are we communicating it well enough so that they go out and have an opportunity to execute it? So it all falls on us.



Q. If there is only a handful of teams in the league that have that consistency, or are a little bit better than the other guys, did you anticipate coming into the season that you would be one of those teams rather than a team that flows back and forth?


CHIP KELLY: I don’t anticipate going in what we’re going to be on a long-term basis. Again, we approach it [as], “What do we got to do this week to beat this team?”



Q. At what point would Bradford need to be cleared in order to play?


CHIP KELLY: We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. We haven’t even had a discussion about it.



Q. RB Darren Sproles played very little snaps until RB Ryan Mathews got hurt; why was that?


CHIP KELLY: We were in a lot more 12 personnel early; he’s playing slot receiver with [WR] Jordan [Matthews]. But really that first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter, we were in a lot more 12 personnel, so we really didn’t have a slot receiver on the field. So that’s where he was rotating in 11 personnel, and then we were rotating [RB] DeMarco [Murray] and [RB] Ryan [Mathews] at the running back spot. Then we switched him from receiver back to running back when Ryan got hurt.



Q. Have you found it difficult to utilize Sproles’s abilities in the mismatches he presents?


CHIP KELLY: Well, a lot of times when he goes in there, he gets two people covering him. So they’re not mismatches; it’s an advantage for the defense, so we have to go away from him. You know what I mean?



Q. So wouldn’t you want him on the field more if he’s getting double coverage a lot?


CHIP KELLY: Not if we’re in 12 personnel, because we’re trying to run the football. So no, I don’t think Darren can play wing for us.



Q. Back to the outside receivers, WR Riley Cooper has had zero receptions in five of the nine games, and WR Miles Austin has zero receptions in four of the nine. The production, generally speaking across the board, hasn’t been there. How much of an obstacle has that been for you to overcome?


CHIP KELLY: I don’t believe it’s an obstacle because I think there are a lot of things we’re doing in targeting our inside receivers and our tight ends just because a matchup is a part of our game plan. We knew going into this game that our tight ends and our inside receivers were going to be huge components in terms of what we were trying to do, so we’re trying to get the ball to those guys. We knew in play-action pass, some of the deep over routes and things like that were going to be difficult for them to catch. So we don’t really care who we get the production from, as long as we’re getting production from the entire offense.



Q. Why not mix WR Jordan Matthews more as an outside receiver?


CHIP KELLY: We do. So Jordan is moving in and out out there, but [RB] Darren [Sproles] does not move out there. So Darren hasn’t practiced as an outside receiver. Jordan played the most snaps out of any receiver we have.



Q. But it was still in the 50 percent as opposed to say 70 –


CHIP KELLY: But when you’re going to play the amount of snaps we’re playing, he still played close to 60 snaps in the game. We had an unusually — we had 98 snaps on the offensive side of the ball. We also have to keep our guys fresh. You can’t keep a guy out there — there’s a point in time when you’re playing 80, 90 snaps in the game, you’re not going to be very productive, especially the way we ask our receivers to run. The yards traveled in a game are pretty high for those guys. You’re getting a lot of press man, so in run situations, you’re running people off. Sometimes on individual plays you’re running 30, 40 yards down the field, so we need to keep those guys fresh. Part of that is that’s why we’re rotating all those guys.



Q. Did you think there would be any mismatch advantages on the outside with Dolphins CB Brent Grimes sidelined and then Dolphins CB Brice McCain going down?


CHIP KELLY: Yeah, but not the mismatches we thought we had on the inside. Again, I thought we had production from our passing game, so I wasn’t concerned with what we were doing out there. I think Brent had 120 [yards]. I thought we were pretty productive. We had –



Q. – 134 yards.


CHIP KELLY: 134. I thought we were very productive with our passing game. So again, we don’t care if it comes from throwing it inside [or] throwing it outside; it’s just are we moving the football? And again, we moved the football, but the penalties were the biggest thing, I think, offensively that held us back yesterday.



Q. How did Sanchez grade out?


CHIP KELLY: Sanchez graded out well. I mean, obviously the interception was a big down for him, but I think he made some other plays. The throw he made to [TE] Zach Ertz on the big play on the over route where he avoided the rush [and] stepped up in the pocket was a good play. We ran a naked once with a defensive end, didn’t bite; he came underneath and made a real good pass to Celek [TE Brent Celek]. He did a good job on the sideline throw to [RB] DeMarco [Murray] when he escaped the pocket and then took it down the sideline. So I thought there were some good plays in there, but obviously one that he’d like back.



Q. C Jason Kelce is really upset with his play. Why and what do you think are his problems this year?


CHIP KELLY: I just think he’s hot and cold. I think in some games — I think against Dallas Jason played an outstanding football game, [and in] Carolina I thought he played a really good game. And this game he didn’t play the way Jason expects himself to play, and we understand that.

I think he’s as highly competitive a player as I’ve ever been around. I don’t know the exact — we haven’t met with those guys. We don’t do that until tomorrow [and won’t be] able to watch the film and see [that] on ‘this’ play what was — getting some feedback from them. But I could tell during the course of the game that he was frustrated.



Q. What was Miami’s defensive line doing to frustrate you?


CHIP KELLY: I just think, especially those two inside kids, they really give us some problems in terms of gap-charge kids and getting up the field. I thought Suh [Dolphins DT Ndamukong Suh] played really, really well, and he’s a handful because he not only is athletic and can beat you with his feet in terms of getting up the field, but if you are in the right spot I think because he’s so strong and powerful, he can knock you back. It was a difficult match-up for us in terms of being able to hold up against somebody as good as him.



Q. You were talking about how the lack of focus on detail is kind of a league-wide thing; can you pinpoint a reason for that? Is it practice restrictions or anything that you see?


CHIP KELLY: I don’t think it’s that; I think it’s more of you also have to give the other side credit, too, in terms of who you’re playing against. You’re playing against a pretty good defensive tackle in [Dolphins DT] Ndamukong Suh. But that’s what this game is all about: Which team can play harder for longer and can be more focused than their opponent and execute. It comes down to executing, and really, as I said in those three games, it comes down to executing one more play than your opponent executed, and [our opponents] out-executed us in those three games.



Q. The whole point of making the offensive overhaul and the personnel overhaul this off-season was to get out of that middle group, right? To get “from good to great” was the quote that was used a lot around here. Why hasn’t that transition taken place? I understand that a lot of these teams are in that middle, but the whole point is to get out of it.


CHIP KELLY: Yeah, I think that’s what everybody’s point is. I think that’s what everybody is striving to get to. We’re all striving to get to that last game of the year and being able to play in February, and that’s what this deal is all about. But I think, again, you have to go — just because you’ve acquired players, we all need to go out, put a game plan together as coaches and put our guys in better positions to make plays.



Q. I know the tight ends had a big game receiving for a lot of passes, but do you feel like you have the wide receivers here that you need for when you do want to go outside and make plays outside, that you can do it?


CHIP KELLY: I think we do have them. I think everything we do is dictated on who we play. So if we can throw for 300-plus yards by throwing to our tight ends and backs, then we’ll continue to do that. And if they take them away, then we need to go to our outside receivers.



Q. But what I’m saying is do you feel like you have the outside receivers?


CHIP KELLY: And I said, yes, I think we do. But in that game, the match-ups that we thought that we were going exploit was against their linebacker. Their best cover linebacker actually was [LB] Jelani [Jenkins], and Jelani went down and got hurt, so now we’ve got to match up against the linebackers and the safeties, and again, we felt like we did a good job exploiting that. Again, I think the penalties were the things offensively –we moved the football. Very rarely were we in situations where we were stopping ourselves and they weren’t stopping us. So it’s not like, ‘Hey, we’re not getting production from ‘this’ or ‘that’.’ It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re calling good plays; we’re executing; we’re making plays.’ Then we have a penalty and now we’re behind the stakes a little bit, so now we’re first-and-20 as opposed to first-and-10 and 12 yards up.

Q. RB DeMarco Murray averaged 2.8 yards per carry; what were the issues there?


CHIP KELLY: Some of it was — it’s a combination of everything. Are we blocking it up the right way? Are we hitting holes at the right time? We had some — when [QB] Sam [Bradford] wasn’t in there and [QB] Mark [Sanchez] was in there, we had some handoff issues a little bit there and I think some of the snap issues were there. So there were a couple different things involved in that.



Q. On the blocked punt, did LB Marcus Smith and TE Trey Burton do the right thing? They both blocked to the right and left Dolphins No. 49, Zach Vigil, to come up the middle to S Chris Maragos.


CHIP KELLY: Yeah, that was Chris’s guy on that play. The snap was a little bit off, so maybe the kick was off a little bit sooner. Chris has got to step up on that play.



Q. Why do you think special teams hasn’t played up to a level in general this year?


CHIP KELLY: That’s one of the things, I think, when you’re talking about games that are going to be close all the time, and in this league they are going to be close, it’s just statistics bear it out. Then, a lot of times it comes down to special teams play.

We’ve had great special teams. Last year, we were outstanding in the special teams aspect, and we haven’t had the contributions. I think in the return game, we were anxious in this game because people had kicked away from [RB] Darren [Sproles], but they kicked to Darren. I don’t think we did a great job in holding up to get Darren started and give him an opportunity to get going a little bit. I think that was the one part we felt, going into this game, that we knew, from a scheme standpoint, that they were going to kick it. And then we had to do a better job, but we didn’t do a good job on our hold-up returns against them. Those are factors that, I think, when you come down to a one-point game, I don’t think our special teams played as well as they have in the past to give us an opportunity to win.



Q. Are you seeing enough urgency, and is that at all related to mistakes? Maybe some of the same mistakes being made over and over?


CHIP KELLY: Am I seeing enough urgency?



Q. Yeah, are you seeing enough urgency?


CHIP KELLY: Yeah, I think these players are focused and urgent in terms of what we’re trying to get accomplished, yeah.



Q. Is that related at all to mistakes?


CHIP KELLY: No, I think if there was one thing, everybody would say, ‘Hey, if we fix ‘this’, we’re golden.’ It’s an individual breakdown at different spots. It’s not one guy that has all the penalties against him. It’s not one guy that is not executing and is missing an assignment, missing a block, running a wrong route or doing the wrong thing. I think it’s just in that game, it was one ‘here’, and then we do a good job and get the ball driven down the field and score. And then the next time, we do it but then we have a penalty on ‘that’ side that negates a play on ‘that’ side. So it’s not just one thing you can point at and say, “It’s ‘this’. If we fix ‘this’, we’re in great shape.”



Q. You held two time-outs until after the two-minute warning; why was that?


CHIP KELLY: Because we knew how much time was going to be left on the clock and we would get the ball back with about a minute — we thought about a minute and 50 [seconds] with one time-out. So we felt very comfortable getting the ball with a minute and 51 [second] time-out that we’d have an opportunity to get into field goal range.



Q. When you have stood here after losses, it seems like, generally, you blame the offense more than the defense.


CHIP KELLY: No. That’s your perception.



Q. So the defense was —


CHIP KELLY: I don’t think our special teams played well yesterday, either. I think our defense played well yesterday. In that game — I just tell you exactly how the game came out. So if the game came out one way, [I will tell you that]; if it came out another way, [I will tell you that]. But I think our defense played well yesterday. I don’t think our offense played to the way we expect them to play, and I don’t think our special teams played to the way we expect them to play.



Q. When you look back at previous losses, Dallas, Atlanta –


CHIP KELLY: [In our game with] Dallas our offense didn’t play well.



Q. With Atlanta your offense didn’t play well?


CHIP KELLY: Atlanta we had an opportunity. I thought our offense played well. Down the stretch we didn’t play well. We had the ball down on the 10-yard line, but we had a holding penalty that put us back. We couldn’t convert on a third-and-1, and then we missed a field goal. I didn’t think our defense played as poorly; we got it straightened out, I think, at halftime defensively. [Atlanta Falcons WR] Julio [Jones] had I think eight or nine catches in the first half and had one catch in the second half. So when I look at that, it’s just how the games express themselves, so I think that’s what happened to us in our losses.



Q. With Sanchez at the end, how do you balance wanting to be aggressive and trying to get a touchdown when you’re in field goal range to take a lead with four minutes left?


CHIP KELLY: There’s time on the clock, there’s 4:32. So I don’t think, at that point in time, you’re trying to shut it down and not play — we’re trying to score a touchdown. I think the important thing for us was we were going to try to score a touchdown and go for two to put us up 27-20 and give ourselves a cushion because, one, they have a good field goal kicker in their own right that has a good leg and has good distance, but I think with 4:32 — and we had moved the ball with Mark in there. I thought he made some really good plays. The play to [RB] DeMarco [Murray] to get the ball down there, I think on the same drive was a play to [TE Zach Ertz], so he had made some really good decisions on it. And then we’re just calling a base play where the play before it we tried to run a stretch play. The backside linebacker flew, we didn’t get a chance to get to him, our guard got cut off and they were over-pursuing on our outside stretch play, so we came back and tried to run the naked off the outside-stretch play. And then if it’s covered we’ve got an option underneath. Let’s just take that at second-and-9, now advance it and get ourselves to a workable third-down situation. We can get ourselves into a third-and-4, third-and-5 and then figure out where we are knowing that we’re in field goal range, and just — I’m sure it’s a throw he wants back, and that’s kind of how the game went. It was just one of those games. The [Dolphins WR] Jarvis Landry catch on the tipped ball, when you watch [S] Malcolm [Jenkins] on the play, he thinks the ball is going over to Max [CB Byron Maxwell]. Then he sees Max turning back and comes back for it. I’ve never seen that play. We hit him for the safety, but the ball runs out the back of the end zone. We recover that ball, and there are a lot of different plays in that game where the ball just didn’t seem to bounce our way.



Q. Protocol allows a player to come to meetings before returning to the field; is that sufficient enough for Bradford?


CHIP KELLY: We’ll address Sam when we figure out what’s wrong with him. I never get into hypotheticals because [the trainers] could tell me he’s already ruled out, so I don’t have a conversation about meetings, how much time, when can he get back and all those other things. We just take it as it comes, so if they tell me he can play, then we’ll make plans that he can play. If they tell me he can’t play or if it’s going to be an extended time, then we’ll make plans then. But we don’t talk about it as a staff. We don’t sit there and say, ‘What if they give us ‘this’ scenario or ‘that’ scenario.’ We’re just trying to break down Tampa Bay tape and get ready for them.



Q. What conversations have you had with Bradford since the injury?


CHIP KELLY: I haven’t had any conversations with him.



Q. Sanchez’s history has been he’s a good quarterback who makes a couple mistakes here and there. It’s like if you’re driving home and you have 10 green lights, but then you run a red one and you’re in an accident, you didn’t have a successful trip home. It doesn’t matter how many good plays —


CHIP KELLY: That was a good analogy right there. [Laughter]



Q. I worked on it. It doesn’t matter how many good plays you have if you make that fatal mistake. Have you seen enough of Sanchez over his history and his time with you —


CHIP KELLY: With us, yes. Again, I didn’t study his history with the Jets that much. I feel very confident in Mark Sanchez.



Q. What about the red light?


CHIP KELLY: He’s not going to drive on the same road you are. [Laughter]