Josh McDaniels Reacts to the Raiders' Loss to the Cardinals
LAS VEGAS, Nev.-The Las Vegas Raiders collapsed against the Arizona Cardinals blowing a 20-point lead.
There wasn't a member of Raider Nation that was happy. The mood in the post-game press conferences, and the locker room was one of anger and disgust.
Rightfully so.
But, that is not to be confused with defeat. While the Silver and Black lost that game, there wasn't one coach or player that acted or conveyed defeat.
Every season and I mean every season has a defeat that makes no sense. But, generally, every season has a win that doesn't either.
This was only game two, of a seventeen-game season and the resolve in the Raiders was evident.
McDaniels discussed it after the game.
You can watch the entire press conference below, and read the transcript:
Head Coach Josh McDaniels
Opening statement:
“Well, I’ll start by giving Kliff [Kingsbury] and his group a lot of credit. They did a great job of hanging in there and just chipping away at the lead as the game wore on. They coached and played 60 minutes and then some a little bit better than we did. Made a few more plays than we did at the end. I thought we thought we got off to a good start, I thought we tried to play the game the right way out, ran out of gas little bit on defense and played a lot of plays in the second half. A big part of that was we really couldn't establish much offensively in terms of rhythm in the third and fourth quarter, and kind of left our defense out there a little bit. We had opportunities, certainly, to win the game at the end. But they deserve a lot of credit. Obviously, they hung in there and they made a few more than we did.”
Q: What can the team take from today’s game?
Coach McDaniels: “First of all, it is two games. Every game is important, so we have a lot of things we're going to be able to learn from. We have to start learning and winning at the same time, that's important for us. We'll be able to learn something from this as well, no question about it. I thought, overall, we just didn't produce on early downs the way we did in the first half. We skipped a lot of third down situations in the first half on the scoring drives, and we had a few third down and long's that we convert in the first half, but then in the second half, when you try to live like that – converting 3rd and 12, 3rd and 13, 3rd and 14, 3rd and 11 – it's tough to do that on a consistent basis. We’ll have to look at what we didn't do as well, in the second half, specifically; but at the at the end of the day, we didn't produce much on early downs, and we found ourselves trying to convert a lot of third and longs.”
Q: Did their adjustments in the second half cause the problems in the second half?
Coach McDaniels: “They did a few things differently in the second half. I'd say most teams would do that if they're trailing at halftime like that. They did a few things differently in the second half, I think. At the end of the day, I think you have to learn how to handle success like we had in the first half, and/or failure if that's you on the other end of the spectrum, if you're behind. And that starts with me, I have to do a better job of getting our team able to handle a lead just as much as we were able to try to fight back last week from a deficit. We're learning, and we have to learn quickly, and we have to start producing some victories here along the way.”
Q: What explanation did you get from the referees after that last review at the end of the game?
Coach McDaniels: “I didn't get an explanation on that. They made the call, so I have no complaints about anything that happened. They made a good play, and obviously they scooped it and score. I'm never going to complain about what they say.”
Q: What are things that the team needs to focus going forward?
Coach McDaniels: “I'd say I think at this point in the season, we're just trying to improve everything. Honestly, I thought we did a decent job in the first half. Josh [Jacobs] really ran hard. I thought he did a good job of creating some opportunities for himself when things were kind of muddled there in the middle. They're a good defense, and they’re fast and physical and they deserve some credit for that too. Look, at the end of the day, we have to be producing no matter what the defense is doing it; whether we're running it or throwing it. They chose to take Davante [Adams] away a little bit more, certainly than last week, than the Chargers did. That forced the ball to some other people. You saw Mack [Hollins] had some success, and Hunter [Renfrow] and Darren [Waller] so the defense they get a vote whatever they choose to do, we got to be able to produce against it.”
Q: Is there something that changed the way Derek Carr was playing during the second half?
Coach McDaniels: “Nothing with Derek, he played fine. We have to do better around him in the second half. To put the quarterback in a third and long situation and ask him to overcome it on his own certainly isn't a good formula for success. I thought Derek played a good football game today. We have to do more to help those situations in the second half than what we did. In the first half, we played the game basically the way we want it to, ahead on the down distance, we were more aggressive, we could be more aggressive because of the down distance was in our favor, but we've lost control of that a little bit in the second half, for sure.”
Q: Is it a metal thing why the team couldn’t finish the game strong?
Coach McDaniels: “No, have a lot of veteran players that have won a lot of games. The reality of the National Football League is that the game is never over until it's over. They have good coaches and good players, and they're going to continue to fight and play. We did the same thing last week; we were behind and we kind of tried to catch up. I thought that was a theme this week in the NFL. It seemed like there's a lot of people that were behind then came back and won. You have to learn to play with the lead, you have to learn to play when you're behind. It's not the same feeling on the sideline, but you can't relax and hope that we have enough. I didn't sense that we that we were like that at halftime, but we certainly didn't coach and play as well as we could have and should have in the second half to try to put it away.”
Q: Do you feel better knowing that you have a lot of guys on the team that know how to play during adversity?
Coach McDaniels: “I love our team. I have a lot of confidence in them. I love their spirit, the way they work, how competitive they are, the way they practice. I have no doubts about the way our team will respond to this. They had a great week of practice and preparation. Like I said, it starts with me, I have to do a better job of helping us to finish these kinds of things out if you get ahead, and that's what we're going to work hard to do as we go forward.”
The Raiders (0-2) will kickoff next Sunday at 10 AM PDT in Nashville, Tennessee against the Titans. You can watch the game on FOX.
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