Raiders STC McMahon with a Big Opportunity in Las Vegas

Josh McDaniels and the Las Vegas Raiders new special teams coach Tom McMahon stepped to the microphone and discussed his plan for the Silver and Black.

HENDERSON, Nev.--Coach Josh McDaniels' reputation as an offensive genius has a lot to do with why the Las Vegas Raiders' Mark Davis selected him to lead his historic franchise.

But being able to coach offense at a high level doesn't mean that McDaniels will be a successful head coach in his second stint. Football is more than just offense and McDaniels showed off what he hopes to be a super addition to his staff.

Tom McMahon was chosen by McDaniels to lead his Silver and Black special teams.

McMahon stepped up to the microphone to address the media and discuss his new position.

Below is the transcript of his press conference and you can watch it above or read the entire document.

Special Teams Coordinator Tom McMahon

Q: Obviously, special teams is about a lot more than a punter and a kicker. But how helpful is it to step into a situation where those spots are pretty well held down?

Coach McMahon: “Oh, that’s nice. The only other time I've been able to do that is in Indianapolis with Adam Vinatieri, Pat McAfee and Matt Overton. So, it's nice to come in with established guys, guys that have done a great job in the league in Daniel [Carlson], AJ [Cole] and Trent [Sieg]. Stepping right in and they're ready to go.”

Q: Do you have a philosophy on whether you want to use starters extensively on special teams or have guys who are more for special teams? What is that mix like for you and what do you think the best approach is?

Coach McMahon: “I think the best approach is, that's a whole staff thing. It's going to come down to how much a guys playing. For example, if you've got a nickel and you're playing a team that for example is going to be in 11 personnel, 10 personnel the whole game, that nickel that's been playing on your kickoff cover team or playing on your punt team as a gunner, he's not going to be able to play as much that game. So, it comes down each week, game-to-game how much we can use starters. But to answer your initial question, you have to use starters in this league. They have to be ready to play. If they're not your starter on your punt team, you have to use your starting linebackers. They're going to eventually play for you. And I think that the teams that use your best players, and that would be my philosophy, let's put the best players out there, you've got to use your best players in order to get the best plays.”

Q: You’re probably familiar with what resource Rich Bisaccia has done in this league and what he was able to do with the Raiders' special teams the last few years. How do you see yourself building upon what he built here?

Coach McMahon: “I think the biggest thing is, is what Rich has done, he's done a great job here. But the big thing that we're going to do is we're going to focus on us from the standpoint and philosophy wise, we're going to try to create a full-court defense. So, when I say full-court defense, when you're talking from the punt team, you're talking from a kickoff cover perspective, we want to make sure that any of the drive starts that we cover are back behind the 20-yard line. From a kickoff return and punt return standpoint, we want to play half-court offense. So, basically if we end up with a 30-yard line drive start on kickoff return and punt return and a 20-yard line drive start on all of our punts and all of our kickoff covers that we cover, I understand touchbacks are different, that's how you create half-court offense and full-court defense, and that's going to be our philosophy. And the big thing that we are going to carry on from what Rich has done is strain. And when I say strain, strain is going to be our top word from the standpoint of, if you're straining, every single player straining, that takes care of the competes, that takes care of effort. What you want is, you want teams around the league to say, hey, look, that's a team that's going to strain.

They're going to strain, they're going to out-compete you, they're going out effort, they're going out tackle you. But all of those things, tackling effort, compete, blocking; they come down to one word and that's strain. And we're going to out-strain people and Rich did a good job of establishing that. We're not going to lose that. We're going to out practice people, but it's going to come down to the word strain.”

Q: What is it about this organization, this opportunity, this city that interested you?

Coach McMahon: “ Well, the biggest thing is, is the tradition. It's one of those where when you think about the Raiders, just the word Raiders brings to me physical play, brings to me guys that are going to out-compete everybody. Guys are going out effort people. We're going to play faster than everybody else, play speed. That's the first thing that came to mind when I had a chance to come here and interview with Josh and Dave was, hey, look, the tradition behind this this organization, there's a lot of winning. But what it came from is speed, power, outworking people, you know, blue collar workers and winning Super Bowls by that way.”

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