Raiders Josh McDaniels After Beating the Broncos
The Las Vegas Raiders Josh McDaniels spoke after beating the Denver Broncos 17-16 on Sunday.
Transcript
00:00 How are you doing?
00:06 Good.
00:07 Good?
00:08 So, just proud of our team.
00:13 You know, coming on the road in the division right off the bat, you know,
00:19 and we've talked about this all week and honestly for a couple weeks,
00:24 it's probably not going to be perfect.
00:25 That was not a masterpiece out there.
00:27 But I liked our mental toughness.
00:29 I liked how we handled adversity.
00:31 You know, we had some things certainly that, you know,
00:33 we got to clean up and we want to fix and make better.
00:36 But the fight of our team, I thought we hung together.
00:39 I thought our leadership was great on the sideline.
00:41 I thought we were determined to play our best football at the end of the game.
00:45 And that's what you have to do, you know, in these types of environments
00:49 and these types of games on the road.
00:51 If you can't do that, you're going to lose a lot of close games.
00:54 And so, just really proud of the way that they responded.
00:58 And, you know, we only had to make one more play than they did.
01:01 And that's what we did.
01:03 Josh, in particular, the defense, especially in that second half,
01:06 I think you guys gave them three points.
01:08 Yep.
01:09 Any adjustments that were made or just kind of settled down and started?
01:12 Yeah, I mean, definitely.
01:13 I thought Pat and the staff did a great job at halftime.
01:15 And then I thought the players did a really good job of executing.
01:18 You know, they were kind of -- you know, he dinked
01:23 and dunked us pretty good.
01:25 The rest of us was really efficient.
01:27 And we let him out of the pocket a few too many times in the first half.
01:30 You know, but he was very efficient in the passing game.
01:33 And then, you know, they kind of got some semblance of a running game going there.
01:36 And so, we -- you know, we tightened it down a little bit and tried to, you know,
01:40 get on them so that there wasn't as many simple completions.
01:44 And, you know, just try to make them work for everything that they -- you know,
01:47 that they got.
01:48 So, you know, try not to give up big plays,
01:50 which I don't think we did a whole lot today.
01:53 We'll make them have to convert numerous third downs in order to get into the
01:56 scoring zone.
01:57 So, I thought the defense played better as the day went on.
01:59 Josh, did the referee give you any reason on the -- when Jimmy early in the game
02:04 that went helmet to helmet on why there was no ejection, did they say anything to you?
02:08 No, I didn't talk.
02:09 I mean, he told me what had happened,
02:11 but I did not get into that conversation with him.
02:13 Josh, last year you had a lot of rotation on the offensive line.
02:16 How solid are you with your performance in the fourth quarter,
02:19 just having your guys go forward like they did and sustain that run game?
02:23 Yeah, you know, Thayer played quite a bit today, you know,
02:25 whether it be as a jumbo tight end.
02:27 He took a series or two there at tackle, too.
02:30 You know, I just -- there's certain things -- I'll tell you right now,
02:33 we got to do things -- there's certain things we're going to have to do better.
02:36 But I did like the way we stood in there and passed protected, you know,
02:40 fell behind 16-10 there and then, you know, went right down the field
02:43 and were able to capitalize on some good plays in the passing game.
02:46 But the protection was good.
02:48 I even thought the protection was really good on the plays where Jimmy
02:52 actually scrambled and made a few first downs with his legs, too.
02:56 So, yeah, look, we got a bunch of fighters up there, you know,
02:59 and they're connected as a unit and as a group.
03:03 And I like the way they play.
03:05 And we're going to see this film and learn a lot from it.
03:07 That was a good defense.
03:08 I'll just tell you right now, it was a good football team.
03:10 It was a good defense.
03:11 They're well coached.
03:12 And our guys fought hard all day.
03:13 They have a good front, you know, so it was tough.
03:15 Can you assess Jimmy?
03:17 I mean, the pick that then comes back in the fourth, drives you,
03:20 and then that last one.
03:21 Jimmy's got great mental toughness as a competitor.
03:26 You have to have a short memory if you're going to play quarterback in this
03:29 league and win games in the fourth quarter.
03:32 There's just no other way around it, you know.
03:34 And so we don't lose our poise on the sideline as a coaching staff.
03:39 We didn't as a group.
03:41 You know, he understood, you know,
03:43 that he was probably trying to make something there that maybe wasn't quite
03:45 there, you know.
03:47 And, you know, would love to take the three points and kind of tie the game
03:51 at that point.
03:52 But, again, the game isn't over, you know, far from it, you know.
03:55 So, got to go back there the next time and, you know,
03:58 take us down the field and put some points on the board again.
04:00 And then I thought he was really good in that drive, you know,
04:04 to try to close the game out with five and a half or whatever it was,
04:07 and we got it.
04:08 So, just love his grit, love his toughness, scramble for the first down,
04:12 and then make the smart play to slide inbounds.
04:15 Just good situational play there.
04:17 You know, some things to clean up like we talked about,
04:20 but proud of the way he played.
04:22 You mentioned whether it's good or bad, there's something to learn from it.
04:25 Yeah.
04:26 Does this game kind of epitomize that,
04:27 especially the first game type of message?
04:29 100%.
04:30 I mean, I could have told you what the speech tomorrow was going to be
04:32 regardless of the outcome, you know.
04:34 It was going to be, you know, all right, here's some things we did okay,
04:38 you know, some things we did well.
04:40 And then there's here's the load of things that we're going to have to clean up
04:43 and we can do better.
04:45 But now you have tape, you know, now you have a full game.
04:47 This football team in the locker room hadn't played a full game yet, you know,
04:51 together ever, you know.
04:53 And so every team in the National Football League will be in the same boat
04:56 after tomorrow night.
04:58 We'll all have played one game.
04:59 We'll all have learned a lot from it.
05:01 And we'll all have a lot of progress that hopefully we can make through hard
05:05 work.
05:06 I know Raiders fans may not be as familiar with Jacoby Myers
05:08 as maybe other fans are.
05:10 But I feel like they got a good glimpse of what Jacoby Myers is all about.
05:14 Yeah, I mean, he's just -- he's a football player, you know.
05:17 He's tough.
05:18 He does a lot of dirty work.
05:19 He blocks in a running game.
05:21 Can go inside and make plays inside.
05:23 And he's got good size and, you know, can make some things happen on third down
05:27 or in the red zone.
05:28 But that's why he's here, you know.
05:31 Dave, you know, was able to get that taken care of so that we could have a guy
05:35 on the other side of Tay and two receiver sets that, you know,
05:38 does some of those things the way he does them.
05:41 And so, always comes up big in big games.
05:44 And today was no different.
05:46 Any status on --
05:47 I don't.
05:48 I haven't talked to the doctors yet.
05:49 The defense?
05:51 (Inaudible)
05:53 Yeah, the first one I honestly think that -- I think the first one was Jimmy
06:00 and him just kind of -- they were communicating at the line of scrimmage.
06:04 And then it just -- it was a fade, you know, and I think it was Mathis,
06:08 if I'm not mistaken.
06:10 You know, it was kind of tight on him.
06:11 But Jacobi's got incredible hands, you know, and he's got good size and length.
06:16 You know, so just kind of Jimmy put it in a great spot,
06:19 and Jacobi went up and got it and shielded it with his body.
06:22 And then the second one was just a slant, you know,
06:25 and I thought Jimmy read it good.
06:27 It was going to be a bang-bang play there because I thought Simmons was right
06:30 there on the right.
06:31 And so he was going to have to --
06:32 I thought Cobes did a good job of flattening his route down
06:35 and really being able to, you know,
06:37 kind of give him the only shot to complete that ball.
06:40 And Jimmy put it right on the money.
06:42 Was Jimmy upset with that tip, the interception in the end zone?
06:45 Should have thrown it away, maybe get three points out of it.
06:47 Yeah, like I said, he acknowledged that that wasn't, you know,
06:50 at the end of the day you can all -- hindsight's 20/20.
06:53 And he would have rather, you know, done something different with the football.
06:56 But, you know, we'll learn from that hopefully and get better because of it.
07:01 Coach, I know you've addressed the way that Jimmy played
07:03 and his on-the-field things, but just in terms of his character,
07:05 in terms of how he was composed,
07:07 how do you think that alleviated the rest of the offense going series to series?
07:10 Yeah, I mean, you know, he's a good leader.
07:14 He's won a lot of games in this league, you know.
07:17 And, you know, I think the guys in the locker room know who they have
07:22 and what this guy can do, how competitive he is.
07:26 He's a very good leader.
07:27 He's a great communicator.
07:29 You know, just does what it takes to win, you know.
07:31 He doesn't care about his statistics or anything like that.
07:35 It's just whatever I got to do at my position to try to help the team win,
07:38 I'm going to try to do it.
07:39 So, again, super happy that he's a Raider.
07:43 Coach, how do you --
07:44 Say it again.
07:45 What are some of the things you'd like to clean up?
07:47 We don't have enough time.
07:49 You know, just -- you know, I thought some of the penalties,
07:52 we could certainly avoid that, you know.
07:54 And, you know, I didn't think we were as productive in the running game
07:58 as I wish we were.
08:00 You know, we got to get -- you know,
08:02 we're going to have to do better than what we did today in the running game.
08:05 You know, just there's so many things, you know.
08:07 I had the mistake on the punt rush, you know, turnover in the red zone.
08:11 Defensively, we kind of allowed the quarterback to be too efficient, you know,
08:15 in the first half, lost contain in the pass rush.
08:17 So, there's -- like I said, I'm just rattling off six
08:20 or eight things right now that are on my head.
08:22 But I'm sure we're going to find another 15 of them on the plane ride home.
08:25 Time for one more question.
08:26 Coach, are you happy with Josh Jacobs' workload
08:29 and how much he got done today?
08:30 Yeah.
08:31 You know, I mean, I thought the other guys went in there and did a few things.
08:33 But it was a very strange game, very strange.
08:37 I mean, I don't know how many possessions -- six?
08:39 Seven.
08:40 So, seven total possessions, and honestly, five in the first three quarters.
08:43 So, it was very strange.
08:45 You know, it was like a lot of long drives,
08:47 and there wasn't a lot of quick changes back and forth.
08:50 So, you know, I thought that that alone kind of kept the play count down
08:55 in the first half.
08:57 So, I think we were 12 runs and 12 passes at halftime,
09:00 and then, you know, kind of play it from there, if you will.
09:02 So, the play count never really got that high.
09:06 You know, but he was ready to go, and, you know, we'll only get better.
09:11 Thank you, Coach.
09:12 Good to go?
09:13 All right, thanks, guys.
09:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]