From Raiders Training Camp: Josh McDaniels

The Las Vegas Raiders are into their third week of training camp, and today Coach Josh McDaniels spoke, and we have his entire comments for you.

HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raiders have opened their 2023 NFL Training Camp, and Coach Josh McDaniels took to the podium to address the media.

You can watch his entire comments below and read the transcript:

 Head Coach Josh McDaniels Opening Statement: “I'll start by saying I compliment the 49ers organization, their coaching staff, their guys. I mean, it's hard to simulate that kind of work. You can't simulate it on your own, so to be able to work together and get as much fundamental technique work, one-on-one’s, competitive and situational work, and do it the way we did it. These are always spirited, but clean. I think everybody did the right thing, and I think both teams had an opportunity to improve. So, I give Kyle and John and their group a ton of credit for this, and we would do it again with them.” 

Q: Davante Adams had to leave practice and we also didn’t see Hunter Renfrow out there. Any update? 

Coach McDaniels: "There's a bunch of guys who weren't out there. It was in the double digits. But no, I haven't seen anything. I don't think it was crazy serious. It was just kind of a bang bang play, totally clean on both sides.” 

Q: We saw six interceptions from the Raiders defense today. Are you starting to get encouraged by what you are seeing? 

Coach McDaniels: "I didn't get to see them all. I was over there on the other field, but I heard some of them. In order to get the ball, you have to be connected, you have to know what your job is, and you have to be willing to make a play when it's coming into your area. And if you're not connected, then there's a lot of big holes in the defense and you don't really have chances. And if you are, then you can make the windows tighter and then you tend to get more hands on the ball, and who knows what happens when you get tips and all that stuff. I don't know how many of them were tipped or not. I don't really know. But I like the idea of any defense that we put out there being aggressive and trying to get the football. We talked about that all offseason, seeing if we can improve ourselves in that area. I think the players have worked really hard at some of the techniques that you would use in trying to create turnovers, and the coaches have identified them. So, it's exciting for our guys when they make a play. Hopefully we can continue to improve in that and then ultimately do them in the regular season.” 

Q: When you look at these two days with the 49ers, you guys looked like the better team. Are you able to enjoy it? Or as a coach are you always going to just look for the negative? 

Coach McDaniels: "There are no scoreboards out there, you know what I mean? And so, I think there was a lot of repetitions by both sides where both teams did some things very well and the other team's going to learn from them. That's kind of how I look at these practices. I don't really try to worry about who's got the advantage in terms of winning the practice or the period. I just really focus on each individual play or period and what the focus is. I thought our team was really into whatever that segment was; red zone defense, two-minute, move the field. We had some different things going on today that I thought that you could see their awareness, and that's really what this practice is about is being able to see if you have 11 guys out there who know what's going on, are aware of the situation, how much time is remaining you, what down is it? Like I said, it's hard to simulate that when you're on your own. And so, to be able to do that, I felt like we were improving in that area. We saw a lot of things last night in the film that we needed to do better as a football team. I think our guys had great intentionality today in terms of like, let me try to fix something that I can control. We'll see what the tape shows, but there's always going to be things to fix.” 

 Q: Have you made a final determination on Jimmy Garoppolo for Sunday? How much will he play if he plays? 

Coach McDaniels: "We have not made any final determination really on anybody. We're going to talk about that tonight. There were guys who got a ton of reps in the last two days. Like I said, we looked at it as a three-day sequence here against the same team, so we wanted to try to give everybody about the same opportunity depending on how practice went and then you kind of divvy up the game reps accordingly. So, we'll kind of take stock of it here today.” 

Q: You added running back Damien Williams. What was kind of the thought process on that move? 

Coach McDaniels: "Yeah, we had a couple of guys who got nicked a little bit. So, we're just getting ready to go into a preseason game where there's four quarters regardless of whether you want them or need them or run out of players. And so, Damien is a guy we worked out earlier in training camp. He was in shape. He's had a productive career. He's a good football player, he's smart, he's tough. And so, we were interested in him honestly before that. But when you start to get a little low at a number here and you got to play a game, and really, we're going to play two in six days, along with another two competitive practices. So, just trying to make sure that at each spot we can, we're kind of as healthy as we can be going into this stretch of days, which is going to be an important one.” 

Q: Now that you've had Zamir White for a while, how does he compare to the evaluation you had on him during the NFL draft process? 

Coach McDaniels: "He's improving there's no question, but the things that we saw, he's powerful, he's fast, he's tough. He's a downhill runner that can really produce yards between the tackles or around the edge. So, he's worked hard at his pass game discipline, protection and catching the football. Just a good example of a young player doing a lot of the things that you need to do to try to get better and be a good NFL football player. So, we're excited about where he's at and the progress that he's made so far." 

Q: What have you seen so far from Tre Tucker? What's the next step for him and his development? 

Coach McDaniels: "Tre [Tucker] is handling a lot of stuff. He's learning multiple positions on offense, which for a young player is great that he can do that. He has the aptitude to do it. We all knew he was fast when we drafted him, but in the NFL it's not just good enough to be fast, you've got to be able to use your speed the right way and learn how to run routes against different techniques and those kind of things. I think that's where we're at right now in his development is how do I improve the technique so that I can beat good players in the NFL when I have to and when I need to. So, made some good plays today, another handful of things that I'm sure we're going to learn from, but he's been out there every day, which is great for young players to be out there and have those opportunities, that's the best thing we can ask." 

Q: What do you think of the last couple of days with Nesta Jade Silvera, how he looked? 

Coach McDaniels: "Nesta [Jade Silvera], he's a powerful guy in there and he's done some good things. He's done some good things in training camp and learning. I think that's a good word right now, learning, because you need different techniques for different schemes based on what you see and your tips and those kind of things. But he's learning, he plays hard, he's physical. We saw that in college, we felt like that he would do that in the NFL regardless, and trying to add to some of the things that he already naturally did well in terms of pass rush and technique and those kind of things. So, he's a young player with a long way to go like everybody is at that stage, but again, he's out there working, getting a lot of repetitions, which is the way you get better." 

Q: Obviously any pass rush is good, but particularly when it's from the interior that tends to affect quarterbacks. What's it been like to see that group kind of come to life? 

Coach McDaniels: "I mean, if the middle doesn't really get any push in there and the tackles on another team do a good job of trying to protect the inside and force the edges to run around the quarterback, then the quarterback has a chance obviously to step forward. So, whether it's end the ends ripping inside and running games or what have you, or the inside guys creating disruption on their own, it really affects the ability of the quarterback to help the tackles. So, I think both teams probably did some of that in the last two days, and your quarterback feels it the most, because he can't really go forward. So, any type of pressure to the spot, we call it, is good. Like I said, we'll see how we did on that today, and the quarterback always has an opportunity to help avoid some of those things, but if you get inside pressure it makes it tough." 

Q: It's been a while since we saw Brandon Facyson carted off. Did you have an update on him? And then also, what are you looking for guys to kind of make their name on Sunday to kind of stand out for you? 

Coach McDaniels: "No update on Face [Brandon Facyson]. I mean, he's still working to try to be back as soon as he can. But Sunday, I mean it's not really about making a name, it's really about trying to go out there and do your job. And who's disciplined enough to do it, as many plays as they're out there. They might be out there for two quarters and some of them might be out there for 15 plays, some of them might be out there for the whole game. So, you're trying to see who can be disciplined enough to know what their job is, communicate with their teammates and then try to use the right technique and see if they can help their team, their side of the ball, make good plays because they're doing the right thing at their spot. I don't want 11 guys going out there as independent contractors trying to light up the scoreboard. That's not really the way to play football. You've got to trust the other guys around you and you've got to do your part. And so, this will be our first opportunity to see that I'd say as a whole with all three phases." 

The Silver and Black open the preseason by hosting the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Aug. 13, at 4 p.m. EDT/1 p.m. PDT.

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