Raiders QB Geno Smith Breaks Down Upcoming Matchup vs. Chargers

LAS VEGAS, Nev. --The Las Vegas Raiders' trade for Geno Smith already looks like a wise one, after Smith's productiv outing on Sunday. They hope he can replicate that peformanc against the Los Angeles Chargers.

Smith spoke to the media before practice on Thursday.

To hear today's comments, view below

Raiders Head Coach Pete Carroll spoke following Sunday's game. Below is a partial transcript.

Q: You talk about areas of improvement, what are some things that you believe that you can see from your interior offensive line that you think could ease Ashton Jeanty to really make that run game come alive moving forward?

Coach Carroll: "Yeah, we need to be a little more accurate with our calls in the targeting. The timing of the working together, the double teams and when you can come off double teams and go to the next level. That takes some time, and the guys haven't played very much together in real games. And so, the games helped us some, the practice against the Niners helped us some, but these games will help us get better. And also, Ashton [Jeanty], he was hyped. He was jacked up, and he would tell you, I would think, that he wished he would have been a little more patient on some reads and things like that that will come. He didn't look like that in preseason. This game, being out there and being called on to play and carried the ball 19 times or whatever. It was a little bit different for him, and he'll play way better. He'll see things more clearly. And I know he's real frustrated by that."

Q: Is there a certain timeline when you expect to know something about Brock Bowers and his knee and Elandon Roberts and his elbow?

Coach Carroll: “No, really, we’re just going day to day. Those guys are tough guys now. They're not going to take the easy way out on this one. They're all going to push to get right. These three days right now are really crucial, the day off today, tomorrow's workouts, and then what becomes like the Tuesday day off for us. They'll be really crucial for us. And I know that the Chargers have that going more so in the break they have, but this will really help us and give us a chance.”

Q: What did the interception do for the defense? Did you kind of notice them get more hyped up or gain any more confidence off of that interception?

Coach Carroll: “Well, they celebrated a little bit. I was glad to see that. Our celebration was a little shaky in preseason. We had so many chances, the ball was up. Did you guys see the play from Maxx [Crosby]? I don’t know about that one, though, jeez. We called time out just to give them more time to look at it because we couldn't throw the flag in the two-minute time frame.

“The ball was bouncing around pretty nice and we missed the fumble recovery on the other one. I thought Maxx had a really good game. He was really active. He was all over the place in the run game, pass game pursuit, pass rush. He got doubled the whole time and just kept bringing it and made things happen for us, so it was really nice.”