Raiders Josh McDaniels' entire Offseason Update

HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raiders are retooling, if not rebuilding, and that point is clear after the latest NFL Owners' meetings in Arizona.

Their actions proved it long before they arrived in Arizona, but listening to the leadership team of Dave Ziegler, Mark Davis, and Josh McDaniels, that point is evident.

In his usual forthcoming way, Josh McDaniels discussed the franchise's state while in Arizona.

Below is both the entire presser that you can watch and the transcript.

Head Coach Josh McDaniels

Q: You have a new quarterback since the last time we talked. How did that all kind of come together, and what are your thoughts on Jimmy Garoppolo being the Raiders quarterback?

Coach McDaniels: "Obviously, I have some experience with him. I think this is a guy who I really got to know well when he came into the league. Because when you get these guys now, there's a huge process of kind of trying to explain the National Football League and teach him how things are done at this level. He came from Eastern Illinois, and it's like they're never huddling and there's not a lot of that communication that goes on in some of these college programs right now. So, we kind of took it from the ground up approach, and those four years were really good. Really, you got to know the kid and how he learns best. He really came a long way, obviously, and then what he's done since he's gone to Kyle [Shanahan] and John [Lynch] in San Francisco. He’s played a lot of big games, really performed well under pressure in a lot of those, and he's been in a really good winning culture. I'm excited to actually to learn from him and listen to him talk about the things he's learned because obviously we've been away for a little while. Getting to see him a couple of weeks ago, that was great, but looking forward to eventually get a chance to sit down when we can actually sit down and talk about football, and just kind of hear from his perspective where he's at and his growth and development and then trying to piece this thing together as we go forward. But very excited about going forward with him."

Q: When you sensed that he was interested in you, how pleasing was that and how quickly did it come together?

Coach McDaniels: "I mean, you never know. Every team has a right to be interested in whoever they choose, and when we reached out and just expressed our interest in that conversation, it seemed that the interest was mutual right away, then things proceed from there. But I was excited that they felt the same way that we did."

Q: When he went to San Francisco, I read a lot about how different Kyle Shanahan's offense was going to be from what he did in New England. What’s his recall been like of what you guys were doing?

Coach McDaniels: "We haven't really had any time to talk about it. I was just saying that at some point we'll get a chance, once the offseason program actually starts, to sit down and talk about what he's learned, which is obviously going to be significant. He's been away for a long time and learned from a really good football coach who I have a great deal of respect for. So, we'll kind of piece it together once we're able to get together and talk football."

Q: How does having Jimmy Garoppolo now kind of changed the approach to the draft? Or does it change the approach to the draft when it comes to the quarterback position?

Coach McDaniels: "I mean, obviously, it makes you feel better if you come out of there without somebody specific. But I think in terms of our roster, what we've tried to do is put ourselves in a position so we can actually draft the best player that we feel like is available at the time. And we're open to anything, you know what I mean? That's nothing new. But if that happened to be a quarterback, then it's a quarterback. If it happened to be a defensive lineman, it's a defensive lineman. If it happened to be a tight end, it's a tight end, you know what I mean? So, whatever player – we're doing our work on everybody and trying to do our due diligence on every spot in the draft. We know we pick high in every round basically, and so it's an opportunity that you hope you don't have a whole lot of, but we're going to try to take full advantage of if we can this year."

Q: I'm working on a story about sleep and NFL coaches because I think a lot of you are not sleeping as much as you should. So, what are your sleeping hours like during the season? What time do you get to work? What time do you wake up? What time are you in bed sleeping?

Coach McDaniels: "I'd say, generically, I'm probably up at 5 a.m. and headed toward the office shortly thereafter. And depending on the day, if it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you're probably talking about leaving at 11:30 p.m. or midnight-ish. Those four days are the toughest four, for sure. You try to catch up a little bit on a Friday. When you've got kids, that's harder to do. I try to get five hours is what I try to do. If I have a minimum, that's the number."

Q: I watched Hard Knocks this season, and Kliff Kingsbury was getting up driving to work at like 3:17 a.m. Do you feel like there's a performative sleep culture where it's like: "I've got to be the first one in because society is telling me to?"

Coach McDaniels: "No, honestly, I don't think there's really a peer pressure part of it. I think more than anything else what it is, is it ends up being whatever cycle the coach wants to be on. I know Sean McVay and I have talked about this; I'm on a little bit of a different schedule than he is. He's up like at three, but he leaves a little earlier. And so, I'm up a little later, and then I'll stay a little later. I think each coach has his own preference and a lot of us like to get there early so we can kind of be not bothered, if you will. Because once 7-7:30 a.m. comes, it's hard to sit at your desk and just think you're going to get a lot of work done."

Q: Does that extend to your position coaches and your coordinators?

Coach McDaniels: "I tell them to do whatever they need to do to get their work done and feel good about the next day. That's all that I ask of them. So, some of them leave earlier than others, some of them come earlier than others. That's really each man's choice."

Q: Do you ever take a nap?

Coach McDaniels: "Never. I can't take a nap during work."

Q: What about during a lunch break?

Coach McDaniels: "I might fall asleep watching film, but that's not because I'm trying to take a nap."

Q: How would you characterize your guys' approach to free agency this year in terms of the defense? What were you trying to do defensively?

Coach McDaniels: "I mean, we felt like we probably needed to add a quantity of players relative to either starters or depth. And the tricky part is going was based on the market of certain positions, it was going to be tougher to maybe address position A, and then you can't really do much else because of the cost of it. So, tried to weigh all those options out and see what made the most sense. [We] felt like with Marcus [Epps] and Robert [Spillane] and Brandon [Facyson], we might have been able to get three starters at different levels of the defense there with a corner, a linebacker, a safety. And then trying to get a couple guys back from our team. I think one of the things that's lost a little bit sometimes is your ability to continue working with somebody is sometimes overlooked in terms of their overall development and impact on the team. So, we had some players last year who played roles, but could they be better in their second year? Could we be better with them in our second year coaching them? [Jerry] Tillery, Ameer Abdullah – players like that, where you have an opportunity to come back and run it back again and see where we can go with it this year as opposed to just calling it a day after one year.

So, we knew there's a lot of things that need to be addressed, but not the least of which is going to be the draft. The draft is obviously important. We need to draft and put a good young core on our team that we drafted, we developed, and that we can continue to work with. We're a little deprived of that at the moment. But hopefully with this draft, we have a lot of picks. And I'd say going forward, if we can try to string together a few of those together, that's really the goal."

Q: The team report cards that the NFLPA put out mentioned the coaches not using players times efficiently and it said they felt like you don't listen to them. What was your reaction to reading that?

McDaniels: "I heard it. I didn't read the whole thing, I heard it. I'm aware of that. Obviously, you don't like to hear those things. We have captains' meetings every week and we'll continue to talk to the leaders on our group. You never know exactly who said it and how it came across, and sometimes context is important. So, I'll look into that and try to do whatever we can do. If there's something that we don't love, there's always going to be certain things that are a give and take in terms of time and so on. So, we've looked at our entire process this offseason and we're going to try to make every aspect of it better. Some of which may mean certain things are done less now that it’s our second year going forward, which may be something that would impact that feeling."

Q: What are the certain things? Can you get more specific?

McDaniels: "Relative to trying to put your foundation of your system in, sometimes there's a time element and a cost to that, that when your brand new and you haven't really spent much time together there's an element of investment there that you feel kind of is a necessary part of the deal. And so, that could have been some of it. Again, I'm not going to try to speak for somebody else. I don't really know who that was. But we'll listen to that for sure, talk to our leaders and the guys that are coming back and see what we can do to make our process even better than what it was."

Q: Have you had any conversations with them?

McDaniels: "We haven't. They're not really in the building necessarily. So, those won't take place until we get to phase one, phase two, those kinds of things."

Q: There's a term of like player friendly coach that is thrown around with some coaches. What do you think of that term? Are there different ways, obviously, to be successful as a head coach in the NFL and how important is it to be seen as player friendly?

McDaniels: "I think you want to help them reach their peak as a player. I think there's a lot of player friendly coaches in our league because they actually help players improve and reach their best performance. I don't know exactly how everybody else does it day-to-day, or their interpersonal interactions with the players, but I think a big part of what we're tasked with is how do we help them improve and we certainly want to try to do that as best we can every day and also create an environment that they love to be around."

Q: Jimmy Garoppolo has had a lot of injuries throughout his career. Is there anything concerning about that before you added him and does that make it more imperative to make sure that you have a backup option?

McDaniels: "Yeah, I mean, look anytime a guy has injuries you look into all of those things. Generally, his injuries haven't been connected to one another. Shoulder, foot, ankle, knee, etc., so it's not one area of his body. So, some of its circumstance, some of its bad luck if you will. But generally speaking, the backup quarterback position, or the depth at that spot, is obviously something that you need to address and try to do it the right way. We're doing a deep dive in the draft. I would love to have a quarterback room that's got guys that are young, developing, under contract, that you can continue to work with every year. As opposed to try to do the veteran route every season if you can. So, we'll see how it goes and how this next month and a half shakes out. But confident Jimmy will be ready to roll and certainly need to do our work and do a good job of finding our backup plan."

Q: Do you feel it's important to have a veteran in place behind him because of the injuries?

McDaniels: "I've done both. Jimmy [Garoppolo] actually ended up being the backup when he was a rookie. Jarrett Stidham actually was the backup when he was a rookie. So, there's an element of that. If I'm not mistaken, I think it was [Doug] Flutie and [Matt] Cassel were together a little bit, so we had a couple guys there. But it's not one thing, depending on how you go about finding that spot and who the kid is. It could be a rookie; it could be a veteran. I think the goal though is to try to eventually draft a player at that position that you continue to move forward with and develop. We've done that. I've done that, I've been a part of that. I enjoy doing that. I think it's a really good philosophy to have organizationally so you're not chasing a brand-new backup quarterback every year and trying to identify who the best fit is. So, see if we can figure that out in the next month here."

Q: What's your thought process on trading Darren Waller?

McDaniels: "I mean, any of those decisions are tough. Darren's obviously a really good player. He's done a lot of really good things. Did some of them last year for us. They're not easy when those things come up. Honestly, it was looking at the whole complexion of the roster of where we're at, felt like we had an opportunity after discussing it with Dave [Ziegler] to get younger and add another draft pick in the draft in the top 100 and use some of that money that we would have paid Darren to pay Jakobi [Meyers] and start working towards some other things. So, like I said, I really enjoyed Darren and wished I would have had more games with him last year. Like I said, not easy decisions, but that's what went into it."

Q: Can you talk about Jakobi [Meyers] and why you guys went after him and what you think he brings to the team?

McDaniels: "Yeah, I've seen Jakobi grow a lot since he came into the league as an undrafted free agent. Smart, tough, dependable, durable. Has learned the two things that you need to be good at in the NFL to play receiver, get open and catch the ball. And so, he does those things well, has been very productive especially in the last three years here with a multitude of different quarterbacks. He's played a little bit with Tom [Brady], played with Cam [Newton], played with Mac [Jones], and has been able to really kind of fit in with all of them. So, just excited about him. He's a mature young guy. He's got a bright future, made a lot of big plays and looking forward to his best football here coming up."

Q: What do you remember about Jakobi Meyers' rookie camp? He obviously was not a heralded guy when he came to you.

Coach McDaniels: "Just the way he works, very smart, and that kind of stood out. You could tell right away that he was intent on doing whatever he could do to make it, and he was he was out there every day. Again, his durability and his ability to be available has been something that I've been impressed with. He's only missed a few games here and there and his career, and he's gone in there and done the dirty work on the inside part of the formation, whether it be blocking and catching, getting hit, those kinds of things. So, he's got a great toughness about him that I love. He can move around the formation quite a bit, he's played against a lot of good competition, just a good player, and we're fortunate that we had an opportunity to add him."

Q: You've got some nice, new facilities in Vegas. How much if at all does having those state-of-the-art facilities help your team?

Coach McDaniels: "I didn't think Mr. D [Mark Davis] cut a corner on our facility. It's been an incredible place to work here for the last year-plus, and every player that has stepped into it basically says the same thing. They remark how it has everything that they need, and all the things that are there are really useful, it's not just a bunch of fluff. But everything we have is really for the players to improve and to come to work and have all the things that they need to make themselves the best that they can be. I love our facility. It's a great place to work, and I think our players really enjoy it."

Q: Does that give you an advantage at all in free agency and things like that? Is it a real difference from being at an older facility?

Coach McDaniels: "I wasn't in the older facility. I played in the stadium, and that wasn't -- you know, it was historic. It wasn't the prettiest place to be, but I enjoyed my couple of times there. I played in it a few times, so that was that. But free agency is interesting because it's not quite like college. The way that free agency has kind of been changed a little bit with the legal tampering period and all that sometimes things are getting kind of finished before you can actually bring the players on a visit. When I first started in the NFL, we would visit the players a lot more often before they would sign deals. So maybe if it was close in terms of like the contract structure or what have you, maybe a player would choose our place because of the facility or the weather or no state income tax or whatever. And all those things, believe me we're trying to pitch whatever we can pitch when you're competing, but there's less visiting now than there was. But any player that we can have come see our facility, I think they all see it the same way.

Q: When you look at Jimmy Garoppolo's numbers in the red zone over the years, they're pretty high up there compared to his contemporaries. And then also how you guys have rearranged the offense, how much of the red zone and being more efficient and getting more juice out of that goes into some of those decisions?

Coach McDaniels: "I mean, we had opportunities last year, and again there's a lot of things we can do better from last season. We've tried to go through our entire process and be critical of ourselves and what we've done and how we can improve it. And that's certainly an area that if you're going to be good in the NFL and win a lot of close games -- which as we heard last night in the session, there's more close games now than there's ever been. So, being able to convert those third down opportunities in the red zone, being able to score more touchdowns in the red zone, is obviously paramount to being able to go further into the season, make the playoffs and beyond. It's definitely going to be a focus for us in terms of being able to try to be more productive down there. And you're right, Jimmy [Garoppolo] has had a great track record down there. Hopefully he can bring that here to Vegas."

Q: Is it something that Jimmy Garoppolo does that you can kind of point a finger to that raises those red zone numbers?

Coach McDaniels: "I think he's -- look, when you get down there there's less space, there are more defenders in a smaller area, it's easier to disguise. So, there's a lot going on for the quarterback, so to be able to sort it out, make quick decisions under pressure with less information, that takes time. Jimmy [Garoppolo] has learned and adapted to our league and to our game and been able to play fast down there, which is important, get it to the right guy. Because a lot of times there's a few guys that are double teamed, and there's one or two that might not be, and he gets to them pretty quickly and gets through his progressions and just has a knack for making some plays down there."

Q: Is that the biggest thing with him, how quickly he's able to get through his progressions?

Coach McDaniels: "Yeah, he's really learned how to process, because when we first got him, he was at a place where it was signal him his part, and then somebody else was singing when everybody else their part. So, it wasn't as complicated, so I'd say he's really improved his ability to go through the field with his eyes, with what he can read in the defense, get through his reads and the progressions quickly to find the right guy. And then he has a quick release. So, when he sees the guy that he needs to go to, the ball is out of his hands pretty quickly, and he's usually generally pretty accurate."

Q: You guys franchise-tagged Josh Jacobs obviously. It's a one-year thing, but for the running back position in general it's kind of shifted towards in terms of how it's perceived, getting de-valued a little bit. Do you believe in that being a position that you can invest in long term and have a payoff?

Coach McDaniels: "Yeah. I mean, that's why we did what we did with JJ [Josh Jacobs] initially, and I think the hope is that we can do something longer than that. I mean, that makes sense for everybody. I mean, if we can do that, that would be my hope as a coach. Look, I mean when you have a player like him, he's a difference maker and clearly led the league in rushing last year and did a really good job for our team. So, I don't really know how the rest of the league values those things. Those things kind of change sometimes pretty quickly depending on who you're talking about and how good the players are, but we have a good one, and I look forward to working with him again and hopefully we can get something done."

Q: It's like you said last year, he kind of opened your eyes because you weren't used to having that single back instead of the running back by committee kind of approach.

Coach McDaniels: "That's right, we hadn't, and honestly the league has kind of gone away from that as well. Going into the season, we had those conversations about: 'Do you want to stick so and so in, or put him in for a little bit to rest?' And it was hard to say yes, you know what I mean? It's just difficult as you're watching him do his thing, and I felt like he got stronger as the year went on and really played some of his best football down the stretch. ... Maybe we maybe we need to do a little bit more proactive help in the backfield, but certainly when you have a guy that's as talented as he is, that changes your thought process for sure."

Q: Sometimes when fans see you move on from your quarterback and move on from Darren Waller, they look at it as a rebuild. How would you characterize this with right now?

Coach McDaniels: “I'm excited. I'm excited about going forward. We know a lot more now than we did 12 months ago. Look, anytime you change philosophies and systems and coaches and those kinds of things, there's always going to be change that happens to the organization. It's not unique to the Raiders. I think every team goes through it, players leave, new players come, you lose some coaches on your staff, that happens every year. So, I think for us, we were excited about where we're at currently. But we also know that there's work to be done here going forward, particularly in the draft, and to do a good job of putting people that fit the type of football we want to play; tough, smart, win up front as best we can on both sides of the ball. We need to get more explosive as a football team. We were in a lot of close games. And so, when you look at those close games, there's a chance to win them. And so, what are the things we need to do to try to get over the hump? Well, that's why we're trying to make some of the decisions we're making and why we have such an eye towards the future of the draft to see if we can make our team younger, tougher, more explosive as a group with some players who are under contract for a while.”

Q: Sean McDermott is going call the defensive plays in Buffalo this year, how much you think his seven years as being a head coach will help him when he adds those responsibilities?

Coach McDaniels: “I didn't know he was going to do that. OK, so I have a great deal of respect for Sean. He's one of the most difficult coaches that I've coached against in my career back when he was in Carolina, Philly and then to Buffalo. Obviously, we've competed against each other a number of times. He's obviously a very capable coach in that regard in terms of calling the defense. I know there's multiple responsibilities on your plate when you're doing that, but I think Sean has a great group of coaches around him. His system and his philosophy is certainly in place there in Buffalo, and there’s no doubt my mind he'll do a great job.”

Q: A lot of the guys you signed a free agency, especially on the defensive side of things, didn't have big names but looked like they were guys that wanted to compete and wanted an opportunity and maybe over doubted a little bit. Was that a little bit of a kind of the thought process going into that?

Coach McDaniels: “Yeah, and an interest in trying to get guys not on a one-year deal. Between Marcus [Epps] and [Robert] Spillane and [Brandon] Facyson and [Jakobi] Myers, and [Jimmy] Garoppolo offensively. We're trying not to do this thing where it's like every year there's a one-year deal and a bunch of one-year deals. Now, you're always going to do a few. I mean, we know that. We're always going to do a few one-year deals, that's kind of impossible to get around that. But I think that we were looking for guys that are looking for a place that they want to call home for more than nine or 10 months, you know what I mean? And be a part of our culture. We try to explain to them what we're looking for, why we're interested in them. There's a very specific reason for all of them, and I think we've addressed some of those things. I think they’re eager to kind of play a leadership role in their individual rooms, and then collectively as a defense here to see if we can improve that group all together.”

Q: What did you see from Robert Spillane? To me, when he talked to us, he just seemed like a football player, right?

Coach McDaniels: “That's what he's like, he's a worker. We talked to a lot of the people that have coached him. Brian Flores coached him in Pittsburgh, and now he’s in Minnesota, but he said you're going to love this guy. He works every day extremely hard, good communicator, has worn the green dot before. Will we do that or not? I don't know yet. We'll figure that stuff out in due time. But toughness, downhill, there’s an element of pass coverage ability there, too. So, we're going to let Rob [Spillane] kind of figure out exactly all the roles that he could play and just wanted another guy there that is younger, hungry, loves the idea of being a Raider, which was important to us to hear that from some guys. But Rob's one of those old school football players, who just wants to he wants to hit people. He's not going to mind if his mouth or nose is bloody a little bit, just keeps playing football.”

Q: Duke Shelley, the cornerback you signed, look like he moved from the slot to the perimeter and things kind of turned around for him last year. Did that play into that role?

Coach McDaniels: “Yeah, and he had quite a bit of ball production too in a short period of time. And again, when we talk about explosive, everybody thinks immediately of like speed. To me, part of what we need to do a little bit better is find the football on defense, you know what I mean? And again, I talked about it, either you touch the ball or touch the quarterback, and Duke touched the ball. So, his number of PBUs since the season wore on, he's got that kind of explosive nature to his game and had some instant instincts to know where things were going and get to it. Whether it was a secondary player or somebody kind of trying to improve the rush up front, we thought that was important, and Duke really stood out in his ability to do that.”

Q: Does David Long Jr. fit that category as well?

Coach McDaniels: “Long is different, a little bit longer player, and no pun intended. But look, he's played on some really good football teams and played in some big games, has some experience on both sides. So, just trying to improve the competition on our team. We think that competition improves everybody, and we're not afraid of it. I don't think the players in our locker room are afraid of it. It just forces you to bring out your best every day. And so, we felt like at corner we were, let’s just say raw, and we’re trying to improve that group with some competition as much as we can and see if we can’t possibly add to it in the draft as well.”

Q: There’s been some chatter about flexing Thursday Night football this year. What are your initial thoughts on it?

Coach McDaniels: “Look, I don’t really get into if it’s better financially for the league or anything like that because that’s way above my pay grade. But as a coach, there’s some challenges with that because if you’re thinking: OK, we have a big game coming up late in the season against somebody and it’s a Sunday game, or scheduled to be a Sunday game, and you’re thinking you are going to have a full week of practice for it, then all of a sudden it gets flexed to a Thursday game, now all of a sudden you really don’t have much practice at all for it. Could it impact the actual quality of the game or the outcome possibly? I mean, maybe. So, I think there’s some consequences that we might run into eventually if they choose to do it that could change some of the dynamics for us. Obviously if you flex somebody else to Thursday and then you’re the team they play afterward, now you gave them 10 days to prepare for you late in the season. So, there are a lot of different things I’m sure everybody will go through to try to figure out. But look, we’ll play whenever they tell us. They flexed us last year to Saturday, and we played on a Saturday. So, whatever it is it is, we’ll do whatever the league says is our responsibility to play and coach. I just think there could be some inherent challenges with it if they do it.”

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The 2023 NFL Draft will go from April 27-29 and be held at Union Station in Kansas City, Mo. The 2023 NFL Year and Free Agency period began at 4 p.m. EDT on March 15.

The Raiders are expected to be significant players in the free-agent market this offseason.

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