Raiders Coach McDaniels Sunday Press Conference

Las Vegas Raiders Coach Josh McDaniels, spoke today after watching the film of the Silver and Black's 34-17 victory over the Rams, and we have his comments.
Raiders Coach McDaniels Sunday Press Conference
Raiders Coach McDaniels Sunday Press Conference /
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HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raiders improved to 2-0 for the 2023 preseason with a 34-17 victory over the Los Angeles Rams.

The Silver and Black flew home last night, and after watching the film, Coach Josh McDaniels met with the media to discuss the win, what he saw, and to look ahead.

You can watch the entire press conference below and read the transcript:

 Head Coach Josh McDaniels 

Q: I've got a couple questions about Netane Muti, your guard who got a lot of playing time yesterday, and then Drake Thomas, as well. Just your thoughts on those two players last night? 

Coach McDaniels: "Mut [Netane Muti] is a guy who we got last season during the course of the year and who has really just worked hard to give himself an opportunity to compete. He's a physical player, still learning all the ins and outs, but making progress. And last night was another good opportunity for him to get a lot of experience and exposure in our system, playing against some decent players right off the bat and he got a lot of snaps. So, he's continuing to progress there. And Drake [Thomas] is a guy who, he's worked hard since he got here. He's a guy who's an undersized guy, but he plays fast and physical, showed up in the kicking game last night multiple times. He made a bunch of plays on defense. He just has a knack of finding the ball, and he's a tough kid. So, really he's given himself an opportunity to compete, and that's why he's here. That's why we liked him after the draft, and we'll continue to try to see if he can progress as we head into the last couple weeks here." 

Q: I just want to ask you a couple quick questions, one about Tre Tucker, he made a mistake early in the game. Did you see some growth from that mistake, like he saw it, recognized and is able to use that as a teachable moment? And then also just the defense making plays that you've been working on a lot in practice, how encouraging is it that it's translated into game action now too? 

Coach McDaniels: "Tre [Tucker], like all young players, they make a few mistakes in these games, and we talked about it last night in the post-game. Either they do it right, or they learn from the mistake. In either case, it's a positive in reality right now. So, he had a couple of things offensively, and then the one play in the kicking game where I'm sure he's going to learn from that. And if that ever happens to him again, he'll make the right decision there. But I loved his mental toughness, I loved his attitude. That's football, you've got to persevere. You're not going to play a perfect game most Sundays in our league. So, to be able to come back from that, and then make a handful of plays offensively to help us go down there, put the ball in, then he had a couple of really nice returns as the game wore on. So, he's a tough kid mentally, a tough kid physically, and he's going to learn from all those mistakes and be better for it. And then the defense, again, we've talked about it all year, if you do the right things and you close the space, and the rush works with the coverage and the coverage works with the rush, you usually give yourself a chance to be around the ball. And before you can start turning the ball over, you've got to get close. And so we're really trying to track attempts and close space in the passing game, make efforts to get the ball out when we get near the runner in terms of creating fumbles and those kinds of things. We're excited to see Isaiah [Pola-Mao] make a good play yesterday on that. And again, you've got to be able to capitalize on an offensive mistake, and it wasn't a super hard play, but he made the catch and then he made a good return, and we did a decent job of blocking for him to escort him to the end zone. So, I'm happy for our guys whenever they make plays, and looking for our defense to continue to try to make that a point of emphasis." 

Q: What has Zamir White shown you in preseason training camp and games that maybe he could be the lead back if you had to go to him in that role? 

Coach McDaniels: "Zamir [White] has made a lot of progress in every area. He caught the ball last night out of the backfield. He knows who he's responsible for in protection. He's chipping in slamming on the edges when he's responsible to do that to help the tackles. He's took great care of the football and protected it very well, which is a huge thing for us and our team, and he runs downhill. He's physical -- there were some plays last night again where maybe it's a two-yard run, but it's a five-yard run. Or it's a four- or five-yard run, and it's a seven-yard run because he's got a great finish and forward lean. He makes extra yards on contact most plays. So, he's just continuing to progress and improve, and the more he plays, the better he does." 

Q: Dalton Wagner and McClendon Curtis -- what is your assessment up to this point in camp on them? 

Coach McDaniels: "They're always here, love football. Literally the two of them are kind of joined at the hip, which is interesting because they've ended up playing quite a bit right beside one another also on the offensive line. But when you see them together, they're in the meal room together, they're in the meeting room together, they're on the practice field early together. They do a lot of things to try to help each other continue to grow as football players which is great. They've shown some toughness in both of these preseason games, have continued to make some progress in practice relative to all the things that our offensive lineman are responsible for. So, all you can ask for from them now is that they give great effort to try to improve and fix the things that we're addressing, which both of them do. They're out there every day, their durability has been very good. They're tough guys, so a lot of positives in that regard, and we'll just continue to work with them and grow. And that's how a lot of really good football players, linemen, have created careers for themselves, and those two guys have a lot of great traits." 

Q: Something that Jimmy Garoppolo said in the locker room yesterday that he was happy with on opening drive was the pace that you guys are playing with the offense. Was that something that was sort of an intentional focus coming into this year to ramp up the pace a little bit? 

Coach McDaniels: "I mean, no not really, nothing changed. But we huddled the whole drive. But look, the reality is when the quarterback knows the play call, and he gets it out of his mouth quickly to the huddle and gets to the line of scrimmage, it's just advantageous for all of us so we can put more pressure on the defense and try to just make them play at our pace. So, Jimmy [Garoppolo] was trying to press that a little bit yesterday and I thought he did a great job of commanding the huddle, controlling the line of scrimmage, getting us in and out of the right stuff, did a really good job in the short time." 

Q: On the first defensive drive of the game, linebacker Robert Spillane ran downhill and made a really nice tackle, kind of set the tone for the rest of the drive to get off the field. What have you seen from Robert, just having him in the building as a player on and off the field that you really like that complements the defense? 

Coach McDaniels: "He's another guy who we've added that's all football and loves the game, loves all the things that go into being good at the game, which was a point of emphasis for us this year. The conversation with Rob [Robert Spillane] is always about football, how to improve, how to get the defense to play better, do things better as a unit, and this guy's a physical player. He's very bright, and he's been huge in terms of connecting our whole group out there on the field when he's been out there. So, he's great communicator, knows his assignments, generally is always around the ball and adds a level of physicality and dependability to us. So, I can't say enough good things about Robert." 

Q: Just asking to see if there's any level of hopefulness or expectation that Josh Jacobs is going to return here pretty soon? And also, do you feel it's important that he gets some practice time under his belt if and when he does show up in time for that season opener against Denver? 

Coach McDaniels: "I don't have any new news on JJ [Josh Jacobs]. I mean, I would say I think that it's important for every player -- this is the National Football League, so it's not easy to go out there and just play games and do it at the speed and level that you want to do it at unless you've really kind of had enough opportunity to get yourself ready to do that. We've talked all year to our team about nothing carries over from one year to the next. You have to re-establish your individual level of performance and collectively as a unit, and ultimately as a team we have to establish and re-establish ourselves in terms of what we're going to be about. So, whether it would be JJ or somebody else, it's the same thing. Everybody's got to have an opportunity to do that, get re-acclimated to the pace, the speed of things. But again, I have no new information on the whole situation." 

Q: This is a process question, I'm just curious to learn how you do things. This last week, last preseason game, did you focus more on guys maybe at the bottom of the roster trying to make a spot, or is it just team focus and let those things fall as they may? 

McDaniels: "I think it's kind of multifaceted, Hondo. We obviously need to take stock of: 'What do we need to do better?' We did that from San Francisco to L.A. We'll do that again today and tomorrow as a coaching staff, and just go back over and review the entire week. We had two great practice days with L.A. and then a preseason game full of, I would say situations and things that we can all learn from. So, we'll try to identify what that bucket of things are in each phase and go work on that this week, as well as continue to focus on some of the competitive situations on our roster and also the evolution of some things that we haven't quite got to yet. Like I said, we've only had 15 practice days. So, there's definitely some things that are still outstanding that we haven't necessarily introduced to our football team, in all three phases, and we'll continue to sprinkle that in, along with focusing on the areas that we can improve in and developing our young players and seeing how some of the competition kind of shakes out here as we head into the Dallas week." 

The Silver and Black return to preseason action when they play the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on Saturday, Aug. 26, at 8 p.m. EDT/5 p.m. PDT.

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Hondo Carpenter
HONDO CARPENTER

Hondo S. Carpenter Sr. is an award-winning sports journalist who brings decades of experience to his role as editor and publisher, and beat writer for our Las Vegas Raiders and the NFL coverage. Carpenter is a member of the PFWA, FWAA, and USBWA.