Dolphins Head Coach Joe Philbin Friday Press Conference

With the Miami Dolphins facing the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, Dolphins head coach Joe Philbin met with the media yesterday. Here is the team provided transcript of the press conference.

(On Ryan Tannehill's psyche after the past two games) - "I thought he had a good practice today. I think he's practiced well, prepared well. Again, I think part of the reason, if you're going to play quarterback in this league, they're probably go to be afternoons where you're night quite as happy with the production that you may have on occasion and obviously everybody wants to minimize that and not have any. But I think history will tell you that quarterbacks have those kind of days and we've got to just fight through it and work through it. There's no pixie dust to throw on there. I think we've just got to go back to practice, go back to work, have faith in the plan, execute the plan in practice and go from there."

(On if Tannehill is a self-confident guy) - "Yeah. Oh yeah, I think so. I think so."

(On what advice he gives to Tannehill in regards to calling timeouts late in a half) - "We like to see if we can handle that (and) kind of take that off him for the most part if we can. Again, I think some of the coaches I've been around in the past used to say in critical situations, you think of players and not plays. We always talk about, ‘Go back to your training. Go back to your fundamentals.' There's not going to be a magic play that's going to win a game or a play call. It's usually execution, fundamentals, discipline, knowing the scheme, staying within the scheme, making good decisions. There's nothing I'm waiting to give him in the last 30 seconds that we've held onto for four and a half months. It's trust your training, believe in what you're doing, trust your teammate's going to be in the right spot at the right time based on if there's a route adjustment that needs to be made based on coverage. There's a bunch of things that can happen post snap, but mostly we're looking for poise and composure in that point and time and not some secret revelation from a coach really."

(On if Tannehill is aware of the game plan about calling timeouts in the second half of a game) - "Yeah, oh yeah."

(On where the offense is in terms of running the offense as fast as he would like to) - "The thing that I think has been a challenge for us is our play count is nowhere near where it needs to be. I think that's primarily, I believe that's a reflection of our third down performance or lack thereof. When you're running 55 plays in a game, let's say you average 12 possessions a game and that's give or take, so if you're running 55 plays, that's four to five plays per possession. It just doesn't add up to the kind of tempo and the fast pace that you want to get going. I would say we're not where we need to be in regard to tempo and I would tell you that third down production and the 10-play possession drives just aren't there."

(On the measure with which he judges his defensive secondary) - "I look more at passer rating; that's a big stat. Third down defense is big. That's an important stat as well. Completion percentage is one of them, but they're all important, it depends on what emphasis you want to put (on them). I think the most important, the one we talk to the team about on a weekly basis, is quarterback passer rating on both sides of the ball. That's where, again, we could certainly be better. I'm not saying we're perfect there, but that's more important to me than sheer yards."

(On whether he feels the defense being ranked 10th in quarterback rating against makes them one of the better defenses in the league) - "I'd say we're kind of middle of the road. I don't think we're great, I'd say we're in the middle of the road."

(On how significant it would be for a player on his team to get voted to the Pro Bowl) - "I think it's great. Again it's a great honor for the individual; there's no question about it. Certainly right now the focus that myself and the rest of the staff has is preparing our guys to play well against Seattle. But certainly having coached in that game it's an honor for a player to participate in that, no question about it."

(On how often he is getting the ball snapped below 10 seconds on the play clock and the ideal speed at which he would like to get the ball snapped) - "I'd say if you probably got it under 18, that's great in a normal down and distance. My guess Barry would be that on third down, you're usually taking a little longer and I'd say that maybe we're getting some of those plays snapped under ten. When you're in that situation I wouldn't be surprised. Again I haven't really studied it a whole lot."

(On whether he would like to have a pace similar to that of the Patriot's offense) - "The faster the better. Once we can get things rolling a little bit and get some first downs and those types of things, sure."

(On how he gets the urgency to win now in the minds of the younger players like it is in the minds of the veteran players) - "I think we told the guys the first day we got together in April that the NFL is a competitive business. It's a tough business and none of us have insured lifetime deals and contracts and those types of things. Our longevity is based on performance; coaches have to perform, players have to perform. Again, where you fall on the spectrum... we use the analogy that whether you have had 135 games like Karlos Dansby or you're playing you're 11th game like a rookie might be playing this week, it doesn't matter. Your job is to perform. If you're out there that's what you are evaluated on. If you're not useful to the organization, than you're not going to be around long whether (you're) young, old; it doesn't really matter. I think our guys understand that. We've been very upfront that, especially when you have 90 guys sitting in a room, look it's competitive. There's not a lot of margin for error. The competition is fierce and we're going to make decision based on how guys perform. I think that's probably universal in business and other areas too."

(On the vibe this week in practice) - "As I mentioned the Monday practice was okay. I thought our Tuesday and Wednesday (practices) were much, much better. We put pads on Wednesday and I thought we had very good sessions in our team run period and our pressure period. We don't put pads on for the whole practice, but we felt those are periods that we want to emphasize. I thought that was good. I haven't watched today's practice yet, but I thought there were a lot of good things in today's practice. We covered some different situations and various backed up, a couple of fourth down and two minutes and things like that. So I think we got a lot accomplished. I think we're ready to go."