Ben McAdoo on Return to New York, Getting CMC More Involved, Thoughts on Baker + More
Playing behind the chains
"We didn't get off to the start we wanted to last week. We just got to keep working. We showed up with a good attitude on Monday and we looked at the tape and everyone took ownership. I've got to do a better job getting guys ready, that's the most important thing."
Getting Christian McCaffrey involved earlier
"Yeah, I mean every week you want to get your guys the ball and certainly Christian the ball. We have confidence in everyone and Christian is a big part of that. We only played 50 plays. We need to get more attempts at the plate. When you get more attempts at the plate you can give people more opportunities. Christian is a unique player, a special player, and we do have to get the ball in his hands."
What changed in the second half vs CLE after a slow start
"Football, man. That's how it goes sometimes. Sometimes football goes your way and sometimes football doesn't go your way. But if you stick together and you keep fighting and show the type of character we did, usually you have a chance to have some success in a ball game. It's a long season and that was one of 17 plus."
How Ickey Ekwonu played
"It was a young player playing his first NFL games against one of the best players in the National Football League and he went out there and he competed and he battled. He improved as the game went on. He went through a rough spot there kind of in the middle but he just kept playing, kept fighting. A guy like Ickey will learn and grow from it."
Going back to New York
"Love New York. Got a lot of great memories there. A lot of great people there in that organization. Love this city. Love North [New] Jersey. But right now it's about getting ready to play a football game. For me to spend any time thinking about that would be selfish and not very smart. Played them twice last year when I was in Dallas and it really didn't factor into anything. Playing them again this year, so far there's nothing to it. Just getting ready to play a ballgame."
Thoughts on Baker Mayfield
"He showed his fight, he showed his competitiveness. He's a tremendous leader. You saw the fight in him. You saw the fight in the team. You saw how important, not just to him, but how hard everybody played and how bad they wanted to win. I think that's an encouraging sign for us. There's nothing more irrelevant in life and in football than the score at halftime. We just got to keep fighting."
Laviska Shenault's progress in the offense
"Laviska is growing. He's learning. A lot of football that he's trying to catch up with but he's making a lot of progress this week. He got a lot of reps yesterday, so that was good to see. We'll go out there today and today's a big day for us. We've got a lot going into today. A lot of situations. Today will be a good day for him to get out there and get going."
Bad snaps/dropped snaps
"Yeah, I'm not in favor of it. We've got to handle the ball better. That's not the way we want it to look. There's no excuse for it, so we've got to spend more time working it. We got to make sure it's not one of those things where we walk around and say, 'oh, we got that.' The first game of the year, the ball hit the ground way too many times. For us to walk around saying the ball is king and to allow that to happen is not good. We've got to fix it and we're taking all of the steps to fix it."
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