Las Vegas Raiders OC Mick Lombardi Week 10 Update

Las Vegas Raiders offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi gave his state of the Las Vegas Raiders address for week ten.

HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raiders (2-6) were embarrassed on Sunday after another embarrassing loss.

OC Mick Lombardi gave his weekly status update on the team moments ago, and you can watch the entire video, and read the transcript below.

Offensive Coordinator Mick Lombardi

Q: In the first half, you guys came out with a lot of success in the pass game. After the game, Josh [McDaniels] said that they adjusted in the second half. But on your end, what could've you guys have done better just as offense in terms of keeping that pass game going?

Coach Lombardi: "I think every series you go out there and you try to have a series of plays and you just try to execute the job to the best of your ability. So, whether it's scheme or whether it's execution, I think everything could have been a little bit better on Sunday in terms of the second half and just stringing positive plays together. So, execution on a consistent basis is something that we're going to have to continue to strive on and practice at and work on that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and get better and do better job on that Sunday."

Q: You guys have had flashes on offense where you execute, and good things happen. What do you think has kept you all from kind of sustaining that over entire games?

Coach Lombardi: "As an offense, it takes 11 guys to do their job and do their job well. So, I think just from a consistency standpoint, each guy doing their job well consistently is what we're going to try and do. I can't really pinpoint any specific example, but we just got to do a better job of stringing positive plays together consistently."

Q: There's a lot of talk about going away from the passing game. But looking back, I think you had five offensive plays from late second quarter to early fourth quarter. You just didn't really have that many opportunities. How difficult is it to find a rhythm when you just don't have the ball?

Coach Lombardi: "People talk about rhythm, I think as an offense, it's our job to go out there and score points every time we get the ball. So, regardless of when we have it, how long we have it, we got to go out there and string positive plays together and score points. We should do better. We got to do a better job of that in the second half to continue to score points and to take a lead and expand a lead because we just can't expect to go out there and play 30 minutes of football. We got to play 60 minutes of football. So, if we had the ball nine times, 10 times in the game; whenever those times come, we got to score and we're going to try and score on all nine or 10, and that's the goal for us as an offense."

Q: There's been times this year this offense has looked amazing, like people thought it would, then it just completely disappears almost. I understand how much the other team has the ball plays into that, but what does your offense have to do to finally put together 60 minutes of good football?

Coach Lombardi: "Again, I think it goes back to all 11 guys being connected and executing their job to the best of their ability, and that's pretty much it. I think it starts with practice. I say it every week with you guys; consistently practicing well on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to get the confidence to play well on Sunday. And I feel like we've done a better job of that as the year has gone on. We're growing. It's a long season. Our best football is ahead of us, I firmly believe that. And so, again, this Sunday is a great opportunity against a good Colts team to go out there and try to execute on number of series and possessions to try and play a full complete game of 60 minutes."

Q: The Colts are going through a coaching change and have a lot of moving parts, but their defensive coordinator is the same and it's pretty much the same on that side of the ball. What have you seen from them and what's going to be challenging?

Coach Lombardi: "Coach [Gus] Bradley, obviously in his time here, you guys knew him pretty well. He's a really good football coach, experienced coach. Every stop he's been at his defense plays extremely hard. They play fast and they get the football. Obviously, they have disruptive players in DeForest Buckner, who's arguably one of the best defensive linemen in the game. And then you have players in the back end. Steph [Stephon] Gilmore is playing at a high level and obviously he plays very confident football for them. And players on all levels; linebackers play fast, defensive linemen get up the field, and they play sound in their coverage. They don't do a lot of things, but they are all connected. They all play 11 connected because they play fast, and they get to the football. I think you guys saw that on Sunday in their performance against New England."

Q: How much of a challenge does DeForest Buckner present to the offensive line?

Coach Lombardi: "Yeah, I think anytime you face an interior defensive line, you look at his skill set in terms of strengths or weaknesses, and DeForest, DeFo as they call him, has a lot of strengths. He has size, he's got quickness, he's got strength, he can power, he can speed. So, it'll be a really good challenge for us this week on the inside, in terms of anchoring in pass protection, following our fundamentals and making sure that we get off the ball and do a good job on him because he can play the run too. He's not just a pass rusher. So, in terms of complete three techniques in the game, he's up there at a high level and you have to do your job on run game, pass game to handle him because if you don't, then he's going to make you pay because he's a very good player."

Q: When you look at how the season has gone and how much talent is on this offense, how frustrated do you get with the results? But also, how encouraged do you get knowing you have a lot of talent moving forward?

Coach Lombardi: "Yeah, I think as a coach and as a player, we just try and stay middle of the line and focus on the next day and focus on next practice and the next game. We can sit back and look at the previous games and learn from them, and say, how can we get better and how can we improve. And then when we come into practice on Wednesday, we're going to have a plan and we're going to give them the best plan we can as a coaching staff to go execute. And they're going to go out there and try to execute it to the best of their ability and try to get better Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Take it each game at a time, each practice at a time because if we just do that, I feel like we'll always improve, and we'll continue to improve."

Q: You've got a third-round pick in Dylan Parham and a seventh-round pick in Thayer Munford. Can you talk about their progression?

Coach Lombardi: "I think as the season goes on, as a coach you look to get every player to get better, every player to improve. Whether his name is Derek Carr, Davante Adams, or Thayer Munford. So, that's the goal for us in terms of stacking the days. Stacking the days together in terms of execution, not only on assignment, but execution in terms of fundamentals. So, I think I spoke to it before, Coach Carmen [Bricillo], Coach Cam [Clemmons] have done a good job with those two guys in terms of getting them ready to play from an X's and O's standpoint, but also from a fundamental standpoint. And then obviously, you've seen them play some good football. And then just like any player, they've had some good plays and some bad plays. So, they learn from the bad plays and try to improve on the good ones."

Q: It did seem like the offensive line was finding that groove and the running game was working so well. Is it concerning that maybe the last two weeks there was a step back or the fact that it hasn't been the same last two weeks?

Coach Lombardi: "I think each week is a new week. And obviously we had our issues against New Orleans, and we couldn't really get the run game going too much in Jacksonville. Our goal this week will be to try and play a balanced game of football and try and get the ball downhill and do our best to get positive plays, whether it's run game or pass game. So, if our goal is to go out there and run it 50 times because we feel like we can do that, then we'll do that. If we feel like we can throw it 50 times, then we'll do that. But we want to try to get positive plays and score points on all possessions we get the football. So, whatever the goal is this week and whatever the game plan is this week, we'll execute it to our best ability."

Q: Davante Adams has seen a lot of coverages this season, however he's still been able to have a lot of success. Knowing what you know about Davante, but also knowing what you know about Stephon Gilmore, how excited are you for that chess match between the two?

Coach Lombardi: "It's funny, Steph and I go back – I coached receivers in New England when he was a corner there. And obviously Steph's a very experienced player, a very smart player, very knowledgeable player. He does a really good job being a student of the game. He studies and watches a lot of film. I used to pick his brain all the time about DB play and how to attack DBs, and he was always very open and helpful for that. So, I know how smart of a player he is. Davante obviously is a very smart receiver. Look, I don't know how much they'll be lined up against each other. I assume quite a bit, but we'll see how it goes out there. Obviously, Davante is going to focus on his job and his role, and so is Steph. We know we're going to get the best from Steph, and we're going to give Steph our best."

Q: You've obviously seen years of tape on Gus Bradley's defense and you guys have prepared for it before. But how much have you kind of talked to the defensive players that were here last year just to get maybe some insight into what they want to do in terms of adjustments at the line of scrimmage and those sorts of things?

Coach Lombardi: "I mean, I think as a coaching staff obviously you can ask some of those things, but you really just focus on the tape. You let the tape tell the story for yourself. Early in the season it's a little more difficult for a new staff to go in there and see what the tape is showing, but now you get into Week 9 and Week 10 of the season, and they have 9-10 games of each team, and you can really see kind of the trends and that type of stuff. So, really you let the tape tell the story and focus really on that in terms of the adjustments because you can pretty much watch the whole season if you need to, to find out, 'Okay, they're going to adjust to this this way, or play this certain scheme this way.' And obviously they're going to have a specific game plan for us this week, so that could change. And whatever they did last year, was last year. So, we'll let the tape tell the story."

The Raiders return to home Allegiant Stadium next Sunday to take on the Indianapolis Colts. That game kicks off at 4:05 EST and 1:05 PST, and it can be seen on CBS.

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