Raiders' Josh McDaniels Final Comments Before Playing the Lions
DETROIT, Mich.--The Las Vegas Raiders (3-4) will duke it out on Monday Night in the Motor City against the Detroit Lions (5-2).
Coach Josh McDaniels tackled many issues surrounding the Silver and Black in his regularly scheduled final press conference.
You can watch the entire press conference above and read the transcript below:
Head Coach Josh McDaniels
Q: Is Jimmy (Garoppolo) ready to go?
Coach McDaniels: "Ready to go."
Q: What about Nate Hobbs and Jakorian Bennett?
Coach McDaniels: "Both of them will be out there again today. I mean, I'm not going to say until after practice, but I think we're headed in the right direction with both guys. So, we're just giving them one more opportunity here to work and make sure we don't have anything that comes up. But I feel better today than I did a few days ago."
Q: (Kicker) Daniel Carlson has not been able to practice, so where does he stand in terms of the game?
Coach McDaniels: "He's going to work some today. I think with him, I would trust him to know his body and situation better than everybody else. He'll do what he needs to do today to kind of make an assessment, and then we'll figure out if that's something we're going to give two more days and give it a shot or not. It's a little tricky with a kicker based on if you don't necessarily want to dress a backup, if you will. So, making a call on that is probably what we're going to do one way or the other, but today it'll be important."
![Las Vegas Raiders Josh McDaniels is finalizing preparation for Monday Night Football in the Motor City versus the Detroit Lions.](https://www.si.com/.image/t_share/MjAxODE5MTA0MjIxMzQwOTYy/josh-mcdaniels-5.jpg)
Q: Have you seen enough out of (kicker) James McCourt to be confident?
Coach McDaniels: "Yeah, he's had a good week and fits in with our guys. He's done a really good job in practice, has a strong leg. He's worked with our snapper and our holder and gotten in plenty of repetitions. So, we really like what he's done, and he'll be ready to go if we need him."
Q: What have you seen for the team this week during practice trying to get ready for this game?
Coach McDaniels: "Good energy, urgency, I think focus, a good attitude. And again, I think there are a lot of ups and again, we want to stop having the downs as much as anybody else does. But when you do that, your leadership shows, and I think the guys really come out with a really good energy. You can only mourn a loss for a very short time and then you’ve got to move on, to get ready for the next one and try to win it. I really liked the way that they've worked, their approach has been right on, and I expect today to be the same."
Q: Any updates on (linebacker) Divine Deablo?
Coach McDaniels: "We'll see how today goes, but again, obviously he wasn't out there the last couple of days. We'll see. We'll see how it goes today."
Q: What does (quarterback) Jimmy Garoppolo look like? You said he's good to go, but what does he look like as far as just coming back?
Coach McDaniels: "Yeah, I think he's got a little pep in his step. Again, he's much the same as everybody else is. He didn't play last week, but I think he wants to get us headed in the right direction and start doing some things that we haven't been doing as well better. But good leadership, good energy at practice, good execution. He's working with everybody across the board, and just really trying to put our focus where it needs to be, and have good days and stack them this week and hopefully finish with a good one today in the red zone, some of our work down there in the scoring area."
Q: (Wide receiver) Hunter Renfrow's role and usage has kind of diminished over the last couple of years. Over 100 catches in 2021 to what's kind of happening right now. Is there a reason for how things have gone for him?
Coach McDaniels: "I think there are a lot of things that have happened over two years, too. I mean last year, I think the biggest part of it was health and just being able to do the things that he was able to do the year before. I think this year -- we've talked about this a lot -- we have to do a better job of doing some things to try to find ways to have him integrated into the scheme. And, again, I think some of it is circumstantial, honestly. Some of it is we maybe miss an opportunity, and some of it is to try to focus more on it and do it more. So, I think there are a lot of things that can help improve there. He's obviously a guy who can help us produce and he has in the past, and one of many that we would like to try to get more involved in things that are right down his alley, and his skill set can really be productive for us. So, we'll see if we can turn a corner on that. There are other guys I'd say who are in the same boat, but just offensively in general; produce, produce from each position, every guy, as much as we can. And again, there's one ball but we have to start finding a bunch of different guys here to help them get into the flow of the game and help our offense be more productive."
Q: One of the narratives has been that the relationship between you and Hunter Renfrow has been fractured. What is the reason?
Coach McDaniels: "No, that's not -- first of all I've never heard that. That's certainly not the case. I think Hunter [Renfrow] is a great guy. I think Hunter has had a really productive career so far, and again I think part of this is I need to focus on the things I can do to help that continue to improve. And we have other players too. Those guys come along and do some things too, and that's the nature of when you have skill players who all want the ball and they all can do things to get the ball. Sometimes decisions, whether it's personnel groupings or scheme or what have you, that can affect it, obviously. So, the bottom line is Hunter is still a really good football player and needs to be a part of our plan to help us win, and I need to do everything I can do to help ourselves do that."
Q: Earlier you were talking about working Jakorian Bennett and Nate Hobbs back to hopefully they can be able to play on Monday. How important would they be against a guy with Amon-Ra St. Brown's skill sets?
Coach McDaniels: "This guy (Brown) is really a talented player. He just he moves all over the formation. He's obviously a very integral part of their offense. He's an explosive player when he gets the ball in his hands, is very difficult to tackle. Again, you're probably not going to stop him from having the ball in every situation because just like I said, they do too many things with him, and he's going to end up with it at some point. So, we're just going to have to try to neutralize the yards after catch honestly as much as we can, because I think that's an explosive element of their offense that probably didn't get as much attention as it should. I think they do a really good job of trying to find ways for him to have space and be productive with the ball once he has it, but he's a savvy route runner, I'm really impressed with the way he's produced and improved throughout the course of his short career. We evaluated him coming out of college, knew he was a good football player, but he really has just taken off, so it's a big challenge for us."
Q: You talked about limiting the yards after the catch, with Nate Hobbs being a good open field tackler and coming back, will that help benefit the defense?
Coach McDaniels: “Yeah, I mean, everybody's going to have to do that. And like I said, they don't just put him inside, they put him outside, they motion him, they send him across the formation. There are a lot of things they do schematically. There are going to be a number of players who would end up either on him or near him. So, in general, our defense is going to need to tackle well on Monday night. This is a team that really has a lot of explosive players who can do some things with the ball. So, we're going to need to play with great effort, get to the football, get as many bodies on them as we can, use our help, and then try to limit that production as much as we can.”
Q You go from playing at noon in Chicago to now 8:30 p.m, in Detroit, so how does that change the approach? Especially on game day?
Coach McDaniels: “I mean, we don't have to leave a day earlier because the time it's not going to be playing at 10 o'clock in the morning Vegas time or anything like that. So, we'll leave tomorrow. It will be a normal travel day. And then we have a little bit of a longer day of the game than what we've had since we're playing at 8:15. So, we'll try to use our time wisely between meetings, rest, walk- throughs, last minute preparations, etc., so that we're ready to go when the ball is kicked at 8:15.”
Q: How might having a game so close to the trade deadline might affect the potential thinking going forward, instead of having that that full day after a game because you guys are playing right up against that deadline?
Coach McDaniels: “I don't know. It's a great question. Like I said, Dave [Ziegler] and Champ [Kelly] and that crew upstairs, they're monitoring whatever there is to monitor in that regard. That happens every year with every team. So, I'm sure they are going to be little things here and there that come up the next few days. Again, I'm going to stay focused on the game and try to really do the best we can to finish our preparation for Detroit. Again, I kind of go into every year thinking that not much is going to happen that would affect us, and if something does come up, then it'll be worth a conversation. But, again, I think the focus now is just on the Detroit game.
The Silver and Black will stay on the road to take on the Detroit Lions on Monday night, Oct. 30, at 8:15 p.m. EDT/5:15 p.m. PDT.
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