Raiders WR DJ Turner from the Locker Room Post Browns

Las Vegas Raiders WT DJ Turner from the locker room after the big win over the Cleveland Browns.

Las Vegas Raiders WR DJ Turner / Darrell Craig Harris, Sports Illustrated

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Al Davis, the ICONIC owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, never said, "Just win pretty baby." 

He said, “Just Win, Baby.”  The Raiders just did.

Responding to an uninspired loss that left Raider Nation clueless and the biggest threat to his young career as a Raiders head coach, Antonio Pierce’s team fought with grit and gumption, even spotting the Cleveland Browns (1-3) an early ten-point lead.

Scoffers, critics, and complainers will point out a myriad of mistakes the young Raiders made, but as President Theodore Roosevelt said, it was the men in the arena who responded and found a way to win, ugly.

Al Davis would celebrate this group.

The 20-16 final score is indicative of a game that, despite the Raiders starting the game with seven starters out (CB Jack Jones was on the bench for the first quarter due to a coach’s decision), the resilient men in Silver and Black simply refused to quit, and never stop battling.

In Pierce’s quest to not just build a one-year wonder but a long-term successful franchise, this was a culture-building win.  Especially after last week, and oh, what a difference a week can make.

There wass far too much talent on this team to move rashly, and the Silver and Black showed Raider Nation that with thirteen games remaining on the season, this team has all of its goals ahead of it.

We caught up with WR DJ Turner in the locker room after the game, and we have it for you to watch below:

Below is a partial transcript of what Coach Antonio Smith said after the win over the Browns.

1. Antonio, you talked about what a great opportunity this was going to be for young players, DJ Glaze, Jackson Powers-Johnson, DJ Turner, Trey Tucker, Brock Bowers. Seems like you had a bunch of contributions from the younger players to get you guys to 2-2. If you could talk about those.

ANTONIO PIERCE: Hats off to our coaching staff getting those guys prepared and obviously credit to the players stepping up. We put 'em in a lot of different roles, I think you saw that today. When you have that many young guys, first and second-year players, guys that have strictly played special teams step up and have an impact on the game and help us win, that's a building block for us going forward.

Q. You said earlier this week that you saw your team display character this week, but to see them come back of the loss last week, fall into a 10-0 hole early and respond the way they did, what did that tell you about your team?

ANTONIO PIERCE: I knew what group I had. I don't want to go backwards but that wasn't the team that we're accustomed to seeing and has shown up over the last several games. It was a trying week, to be honest, a lot of hoopla stuff, probably started with me and my comments, and I apologized to them for that. I don't want to be a distraction that way, but at the end of the day, we went to work each and every day. They came out throughout the week, and guys never flinched and blinked. We just talked about playing one play at a time, playing for one year. Adam Butler spoke to the team, did an hell of a job with that and got us going throughout the weekend.

Q. You talked about building a culture of winning. How much does this last week go toward that?

ANTONIO PIERCE: Two weeks ago after the Baltimore win, my words were trying to build that winning consistency, that winning stamina, each and every week, and hopefully not riding a roller coaster. But we are going to take this and enjoy this for 24 hours, because it's hard to get in the National Football League. Our home crowd was outstanding, especially late in the game they helped us out.

Q. Cleveland went three for three on that opening drive, didn't convert a third down the rest of the game. What did you see that helped flip that script and get your guys to respond in the way you needed them to?

ANTONIO PIERCE: I mean, I think obviously they executed. They went to a better player; right? No. 2 showed up on two or three of those, Cooper, and I think as the game plan on went on we did a good job of finding guys that are key players in those situations, but more importantly I think our rush and coverage added up and made the quarterback hold the ball a little bit, and we got some throws, errant throws that we wanted, and obviously one we took advantage of and got an interception.

Q. Back to the younger guys, Isaiah Pola-Mao with a sack and a big pass break-up late in that game, and also Jakorian, seems to keep showing up every week. If you could talk about those two players?

ANTONIO PIERCE: Isaiah, I mentioned earlier in the week, played over 250 snaps on defense and primary special teams, as we know. We were waiting to get him out there, and the opportunity came with Marcus Epps going down, and I thought he did an outstanding job all week, spending more time in the classroom, Gerald Alexander spending time with him, and then really Tre'von, it's difficult when all of the sudden you have a new guy next to you, communicating. There is continuity that goes into that as well, but he came up huge and big. J.B. just -- listen, I've been saying it, steady Eddie, just keeps improving each and every week. I think the best thing about him, as a corner you're going to get balls caught on you. You just gotta move on. Even tonight, ball caught on him, move on, and we need him on third down, and he makes a huge play, so hats off to those two.

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