WATCH: Raiders Weapon Gives Insight Ahead of Week 11 Matchup

The Las Vegas Raiders play Miami on Sunday. Running back Alexander Mattison spoke ahead of the contest on Friday.

Las Vegas Raiders RB Alexander Mattison / Darrell Craig Harris, Sports Illustrated

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Running back Alexander Mattison is a key part of the Las Vegas Raiders offense, especially as it tries to find some life with interim offensive coordinator Scott Turner.

Mattison spoke from the locker room Friday, and we have everything he said right here:

Here is the full transcript from Turner's press conference this week:

Coach Turner: “Hey, before you get started with questions, I just wanted to say something if you don’t mind. The sports/football world, and the Las Vegas community specifically, lost someone this past week in Coach John Robinson. So, just wanted to acknowledge him. He was my college coach, had a big impact on my life both professionally and personally. And then my dad [Norv Turner], who just joined the staff, obviously you guys know that, he played for him [Coach Robinson] at Oregon, he coached for him, and that’s how my dad met my mom, when she was his secretary at USC. So, obviously, a big, big part of our family, a tough loss, and it’s a tough loss for everybody in the football community. A legendary coach, College Football Hall of Fame. So, just wanted to acknowledge that before we got started here. Thank you.”

Q: You mentioned Norv Turner coming into the building, what kind of role do you see for him moving forward with you as the interim offensive coordinator?

Coach Turner: “He has such a wealth of knowledge. We were joking about it and I was telling the guys that he was calling offensive plays in the NFL from 1991 to 2019, and he only missed one year. He missed 2017. So, you have somebody that has done that. He had the number one offenses in three different decades. And he’s my dad, so we like being around each other. We lost some coaches on offense, so just another set of eyes. He knows how I see football because I learned most of it from him. So, being able to have him at practice every day, not just watching the games from afar or whatever, and helping just with input is invaluable. And then, for a personal note, obviously it's good to have him around. And my kids are fired up to have their grandfather around."

Q: What's the first step with that? Is that, 'Here's our tapes, can you take a look at this?'

Coach Turner: "Yeah, I mean, he watches football constantly. He knows what we've done on offense. Obviously, the verbiage is totally foreign to him, but I just translate it. He just says what he thinks. And I know, 'Oh yeah, we call them this and whatever.' So, it's really not that hard. And then just fundamentals, tidbits for the quarterback. He's sitting in a lot of the quarterback meetings, just stuff that you don't even think of. Again, I can only see so much. We have a great coaching staff. Those guys are doing a great job too, but just another set of eyes with the wealth of experience that he has. Also, he's not afraid to tell me what he really thinks, obviously, so that part of it is great as well."

Q: What have you seen with the run game this year and how do you try and fix it?

Coach Turner: "We've had some issues, obviously. We know we're not doing a great job right now of running the football. Trying to just make sure that the communication is great up front, so number one, we know who we're getting to. Coach [Joe] Philbin, he's going to do a great job, even in practice yesterday. Just really focusing on the fundamentals of hat placement, understanding what we're trying to get out of every run. Hopefully we can stay a little healthier and have some continuity, which will help us get going up front. And then the backs, just being decisive, don't worry about making a mistake or putting the ball in the wrong place, just go hit it and run and get your pads going forward. And then we got to get first downs, like you got to get first downs, whether it's in the run or pass, to give yourself more attempts to run the football, because that's where we're lacking too. We're lacking at attempts. We haven't had great efficiency, but we're also low at attempts as well."

Q: You've been an offensive coordinator before. What did you learn from that experience that could help with this?

Coach Turner: "Yeah, a lot. This league is tough. It's very competitive. You got to bring it every day. Different people are going to play you different ways. Certain matchups are going to favor you schematically more than others. But really, it's just dealing with the people. This is a relationship business, and you got to understand what your guys on your team do the best, and then try to find a way to get that out of them and then get them to perform at the highest level every single week. Because there's no bad teams in this league. Anybody can beat anybody. There's no bad coaches. You're going to get a tough matchup that you're going to have to deal with every week, and you got to stay sharp, and you got to deal with adversity. I told the guys, this league's about adversity, and you learn that. I learned that in Washington. I was coordinator for three years, and whatever, we were 8-8-1, got fired. It didn't work out. So, I'm getting an opportunity, and I'm just excited to work with our players, and just trying to make them perform at the best level they're capable of."

Q: Obviously this time of year isn't the time of year to overhaul things and to completely install a new offense. But how do you go about trying to make the improvements and maybe make it look a little bit different? And will it look a lot or noticeably different?

Coach Turner: "Yeah, like you said, you're not going to go in and put a brand-new offense in the bye week going into Week 10. But any real offense, and again, I've only been in a few systems, you might coach a little different, but they have a lot of scheme. And then what shows up on Sunday isn't necessarily what's been in training camp, or what's been installed, and it's just a matter of what you get to. So, maybe some things that I'm a little bit more comfortable with or I feel like will help us be successful. We have it, and then it's just a way of getting it communicated to our players in a way that it makes sense to them. And there might be a couple new things here and there, and we'll see how that grows as the season goes on. I'm not going to come up here and say it's not about the plays, a lot of is about the plays, but it's about the players believing in the plays and knowing exactly what to do so that they can play fast all the time and then reach their capabilities, and everyone’s different, right? So, whatever that may be."

Q: When Antonio Pierce mentioned that he wassticking with Gardner Minshew asthe quarterback, you being the former pass game coordinator, now the interim offensive coordinator, he talked about sticking the confidence back into him. How do you go about doing that now?

Coach Turner: "I think everyone, when you lose five games in a row and you're 2-7 and you go into a bye, I think everyone kind of needed a little bit of a reset. And you look at the games, and like I said, I talked about the competitiveness of the games. One play here and there can kind of throw a game good or bad. And so, I think when you look back and you show those guys, 'See, hey, look at all these positives, look at all the good things you did,' and then give them solutions to eliminate the negatives. The other team's always going to make plays. That's going to happen in every NFL game. I think you guys have seen enough to know that. But what you can't do is you just can't give them plays. Some of the plays late in the down, whatever, we just got to be better, whether if it's not in our favor to get to the next down, and then when it is in our favor, we got to capitalize on them. And again, there's been good. We just got to build on that. And that's what you got to focus on, kind of let them reset, let them get away from it. We did that. And now hit the ground running and try to put these guys in situations where they feel confident that they're going to be successful."

Q: How crucial was having the extra week with the bye to really take a look at the offense?

Coach Turner: "It was good. It was really valuable for me. Guys got away. I didn't leave town. I came in a pretty decent amount. I spent some time with my family. But to answer both your questions, like what do I feel comfortable kind of changing or manipulating a little bit? That was big and kind of evaluating what we did well, evaluate stuff maybe we didn't do well and we want to kind of stay away from. And then every game is different. I told the players, it's eight one-week seasons. So, we're focused on Miami, we're all in on whatever we need to do. And then when that game's over, we'll reset and go on to the next one."

Q: You started off talking about Coach John Robinson. What did he teach you just from a football perspective? What did you learn from him?

Coach Turner: "I mean, football wise, obviously he was so big schematically in the run game, like big time run game. He was so good with the backs, a big focus on that. When I was there, we had guys like Joe Haro, Dominique Dorsey that were good backs, and Larry Croom, Dyante Perkins, watching them and watching how he coached them. That was cool to see, really helping those guys. And then the big thing that he did as the head coach, and what I said before is like, this is a relationship business, and I learned that from him, just like how he truly cared about all the players on the team. And it didn't matter if it was a walk-on or the highest recruit that we had there at the time, he knew about them and he found time to build relationships with guys to try to help them be the best that they can be. And that's what coaching is about, and that's why you get in this business."

Q: Going back to the offensive line, it feels like individually there's a lot of talent on this offensive line. They've all played reasonably well as individuals, but collectively maybe it hasn't gone in the direction you guys want it to. Why do you feel that is, and what do you feel like you guys can do to kind of get that collectiveness?

Coach Turner: "I think our focus has got to be on communication. Like those guys got to communicate, and like I said, hopefully we can get some continuity. We have had changing lineups there, and you're right, we've got some talented guys up front. And I think we got some guys that are young guys that are going to continue to get better. And I think the more they play, the more they communicate, if we can make things – again, you can't just say we're going to be super simple because you've got to go try to make plays – but as much as we can walk that line, that helps those guys as well. Because when guys know what to do, that allows them to play fast, which builds confidence, and then you play better."

Q: Can you sort of walk us through the process of finding out about this opportunity? What like the very first steps were and what your thought process was?

Coach Turner: "I'm going to keep that a little bit in house, but AP [Antonio Pierce] made the decision that he made, and he contacted me, and we started to kind of go through the process. The only thing I really asked for was if we could have my dad come just for some help. And he was good about that. When AP was a player, he played against my dad when he was a coach. So, he thought it was a good idea, and that's pretty much it. I mean we had some other conversations that I'll leave."

Q: Did your dad jump through the phone line?

Coach Turner: "He said, 'Don't tell your mom.' I've got to find out how I'm going to break it.’ She was good. She was like, 'I don't know why he was so nervous.' I was like, 'Come on.' He's living with me, so my kids are enjoying that. I mean, they don't see him much, but they will as we get to the end of the week, and my mom will be out here in about a week or so. I mean, I coached with my dad before and he was the coordinator and I was the quarterback coach. So, being able to live close to him was great. Now my kids are older, 10 and eight, so they're like super fired up about having Papa around. So, that part of it on a personal note is really cool."

Q: On that personal level also, I mean has it kind of hit you yet, not only being able to coach with your dad again, but also coach where your college career was and then being able to call the plays here in this town again?

Coach Turner: "It's cool. I mean, yeah when I left, I was coaching in the NFL for a while and I didn't know if I'd come back to Vegas, there wasn't a team. So, being back here, living here again almost two years now has been cool. I went to that Friday night Boise-UNLV game, saw a lot of guys I hadn't seen in like 20 years. So, it's good, it's a great opportunity. Again, trying to get these guys going and just get the most out of them. That's what excites me, is the opportunity I think that we have to get better and go play and go try to win some football games."

Q: Have you talked to Shane Steichen recently?

Coach Turner: "Yeah, I talk to Shane every once in a while. Obviously, we're both really busy. Somebody sent me a picture actually of Coach [John] Robinson and me and Shane in the background. But he's dealing with it too, like we all are. So, just fighting through the NFL schedule." Q: Is there any one big takeaway that you hope to draw from your father's experience, especially because he did have experience with this organization? Coach Turner: "Yeah, it's changed a lot, the organization in that time, so not so much that. I can't even put my finger on it, like that's what was so big to me, being able to have him around all the time is instead of just a phone conversation, like there's stuff that comes up, like we're walking, I could be walking to practice, and he could be like, 'Hey, I just thought of something.' And I'll be like, 'Oh, that's a great idea.' So just that, the stuff that happens in practice, I mean everything. I can't even name it, it's invaluable to have someone like that around."

Q: When you do the self-scout with Gardner Minshew, what are your biggest takeaways as far as his play the first half?

Coach Turner: "Just consistency. He knows we've got to obviously take care of the football. And then just the consistency of it. I'm not going to get into the schematic details and everything like that, but just one play at a time and don't try to do too much, just kind of take what they give you and move on to the next play."

Q: Antonio Pierce mentioned his confidence yesterday. How is his confidence doing?

Coach Turner: "He's been good. We've had a great couple of days. Guys were in here Tuesday, kind of worked out and had a walk through. And then we had practice yesterday. I felt like he had a good day. And just kind of keep building it up as we get closer to game day."

Ensure you follow on X (Twitter) @HondoCarpenter and IG @HondoSr and never miss another breaking news story again.

Please let us know your thoughts when you like our Facebook page WHEN YOU CLICK RIGHT HERE.