Raiders; McDaniels After a 34-17 Win Over the Rams
INGLEWOOD, Cal.--The Las Vegas Raiders took out the Los Angeles Rams 34-17 here at Allegiant Stadium last night.
Josh McDaniels immediately after the game spoke to the media about the win. We have his entire comments for you below as both a video, and a transcript:
Raiders Head Coach Josh McDaniels (Opening Statement) “I'll start by giving credit to the Rams organization. This whole week for us was really an important week. I think it's an important week around the NFL and you learn a lot from your first game and then have an opportunity to improve upon it and we had the added benefit of working with another team in a second week in a row and doing it in a totally first class manner. So, (Rams Head Coach) Sean (McVay), (Rams General Manager) Les (Snead), (Rams Chief Operating Officer) Kevin (Demoff), their entire organization were great hosts for us. We knew exactly what we wanted to try to get done here and we got a lot of work done on the practice field and obviously got a lot of work tonight in the game. So much to continue to improve on, but I thought our team competed every day with their team as they did and I thought we made some progress and we'll take a look at the tape tomorrow and see where we're at.”
(On the thought process behind starting (QB) Jimmy Garoppolo as well as other starters) “Yeah, you always go through that conversation in your head every year and we just felt like it was with a number of new faces, number of guys that were basically going to play their first regular season game together, that we'd like to go ahead and get that feeling you have in your stomach on a normal game day in the regular season, kind of get some of that out of the way today and go through a normal pregame preparation understanding that you were going to play, you're going to suit up. It's different when you know you can get hit and when you're bringing people to the ground as opposed to practice when you're not really doing that. So I think just making that decision as a staff, as an organization with (General Manager) Dave (Ziegler), I thought our players had a great mindset about it, wanted to come out and do it, do it right. I'm sure everything wasn't perfect, but we were able to get them in there, get them communicating together, get in the huddle, look each other in the eyes, play a drive offensively with those guys and handful of snaps defensively, same thing. So just thought it was the best thing for our team.”
(On Garoppolo’s throw to (WR) Jakobi Meyers where a defender was barreling down on him) “I mean, look, I think every quarterback or player that touches the football knows once the regular season comes that they're live bait, they're going get hit. It's always good to kind of get that out of the way and some of that anxiety about how it feels because you haven't done it in a long time, seven, eight months at minimum. So no, he wanted to be out there. I thought he handled the huddle really well, good tempo in and out of the huddle and was efficient in passing game and got us in the right run plays and we were able to get out there and put some points on the board.”
(On his thoughts on (RT) Jermaine Eluemunor on the left side of the line and (RT) Thayer Munford Jr. on the right) “Yeah, (LT) Kolton (Miller) was one of the handful of guys, we had a handful of guys that obviously didn't play. We tried to make smart decisions about if there was guys that were banged up or nursing something or just kind of coming back, or maybe just wanted to be careful with a couple people, which is what we were doing. We just felt like it wasn't the right thing to do. And so just felt that giving those two guys an opportunity, they're competing at right tackle and now they're both in the game at the same time for basically the entirety of the first half. So it just gave us a great opportunity to evaluate those two guys. Jermaine has played on the left side before, played games for us last year on the left side, so it wasn't a brand-new thing for him, but he's practiced there some and it's good to see those guys go out there compete.”
(On his impression of DE Malcolm Koonce tonight and throughout camp) “Yeah, Malcolm has had a great attitude all year and you know, he's really grown since we got here just overall in terms of how he plays the position fundamentally and thinks about both run game, pass rush, etcetera. I'll have to see the film in order to be able to tell you how I felt like the overall thing went for him tonight but Malcolm's been disruptive. He's gotten better over the two years we've been together and he's got a great attitude about it. So, you know, I expect him to really compete and help us this year at that spot.”
(On what he’s seen from the OL that he really liked and that led to their success) “Anytime you give the quarterback the opportunity to…It wasn’t like the ball was coming out that quick. We wanted to see if we could do both, quite honestly in this game and see if we could protect and see if we could make a few plays down the field, some chunk passes down the field. I thought the line, for the most part, provided the guys with some time to throw, stand back there, read the coverage. Again, you got to take everything with a grain of salt, you know? We know ninety-nine [Rams DE Aaron Donald] wasn't out there and they didn't blitz a whole lot tonight. So for the things that we asked them to do, I thought they were productive in the pass game.”
(On WR Tre Tucker bouncing back after a bumpy start) “Sure did. I mean, like I said, they either do it right or they make a mistake and learn from it. In either case it's a positive, you know what I mean? So we kind of win or learn, and that's kind of our attitude. And Tre, he'll learn from the kickoff return deal and those are all first-time opportunities for a guy like that who's just entering the National Football League. So he did some decent things in the punt return game, made a great catch on the sideline, caught the deep one. It's all positive in that regard. There were definitely mistakes, but those things are going to be learning experiences for our young guys.”
(On if CB Jakorian Bennett did not dress because of injury) “No, like I said, there's a number of guys that didn't play and he was one of them so just trying to be smart with the number of guys that are either feeling a little sore from camp and so on and so forth. I don't know what the number was, but it was somewhere in the 12 to 15 range that didn't suit up so he was one of them.”
(On whether any injuries came out of tonight’s game) “I don't have the final list, but it seemed like we made it out fairly healthy. We’ll see, DB [LB Darien Butler] had a couple things, so we'll see what that is. But overall, I thought it was a fairly, good sequence for us to get out there, play and not have a bunch of injuries, guys coming off the field tonight. I think that was the same thing with their team too. So I think we had a fairly healthy game.”
(On his early impressions of TE Michael Mayer) “Yeah, he got his feet wet and he did some decent things, and then he made some mistakes. But again, he's the same as those other guys, and he's either going do it right or he'll learn from the opportunity. So, you know, this week coming up will be a big week for those guys that didn't play in the San Francisco game. Now they got their first game action. There's a little bit of a different taste in your mouth. You kind of understand the speed of the game, it's picking up a little bit. So they'll have an opportunity to improve on some of those things this week.”
(On QB Jimmy Garoppolo’s progression throughout camp) “Yeah, this was always the game we kind of had earmarked for him based on what we were doing to get him out there with his guys and let him have an opportunity to play. So he's definitely progressing and continuing to improve as our group continues to work around him. And again, this will be another big week this week.”
(On if QB Aidan O’Connell has earned the chance to get earlier playing time next week) “Well, he played the whole game basically last week. So, next week is next week. We'll figure out exactly what we need to do based on some of the competition that we're looking at and some of the things we really want to see prior to the regular season beginning. But you know, we've got three practices this week, we've got a preseason game, got three practices the following week, so kind of looking at it in totality. There's a lot of decisions and conversations to be had internally about what we're going do and how we're going to use this final preseason game coming up in Dallas.”
(On DE David Agoha recording his first NFL sack) “I just think that's really cool. And for him, the first sack and then the response from the team I think says a lot about David and the kind of kid he is. So really happy to see him do that.”
The Silver and Black return to preseason action when they play the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on Saturday, Aug. 26, at 8 p.m. EDT/5 p.m. PDT.
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