Josh McDaniels Opens Week Five of Las Vegas Raiders Camp

HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raiders (3-0) enter their final preseason game of the year on Friday Night at Allegiant Stadium hosting the New England Patriots.

Josh McDaniels leads his team into their fifth week of training camp, and the newly minted Raiders leader has a lot of reasons for optimism.

He spoke to the media about the win over the Minnesota Vikings last week and looked ahead to this week.

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

Head Coach Josh McDaniels

Q: Can you talk about the roster depth that Dave Ziegler was able to build and how that affects the quality of guys competing for final roster spots? building a group of guys for you that you have so many guys competing for such a few spots?

Coach McDaniels: "Every decision we've tried to make is really with that in mind. Dave and his group have found – going back to February and March – as many competitive bodies in each position group that we could. I really think that we found the right kind of people that come in here and really are interested in that kind of competition. The attitude, the approach that we have from some of the veteran guys that were here before, and then also that we've put in there and blended together along with some of the young guys; you've seen a lot of football being played by those guys in the preseason. So, I just think our overall commitment to trying to improve the competition across the board has made our team – we'll see how much better we've made our team. We've certainly made each position room competitive; they know that they're trying to compete to earn the opportunity to play on all four downs. And I really commend Dave and his group for trying to do that. And they're still trying to do it. They're looking at every nook and cranny of film that we've produced. And now that the league is playing, I mean, that's just a big part of this operation. His group is hard at work, just evaluating the entire league, not only for the teams we have to play going forward, but also anything else that may or may not be able to help our team."

Q: Were you pleased with the improvement on run defense and special teams?

Coach McDaniels: "I think we saw some progress. We didn't face any kickoff returns last night because we chose to try to see if we could create touchbacks and Daniel [Carlson] did a good job there. But for the most part, I thought we were we were trying hard to do some things better in the run defense, our fits, our force, our tackling. I thought we had some good tackles, and then we had some things where we can probably do them better. We've tried to identify what it is we're trying to fix and improve on each week. Hopefully, the communication is clear, so that they understand what those things are. And I thought a few of those things showed up in the game last night."

Q: What's your key as a coach to aid players experiencing 'growing pains?

Coach McDaniels: "Consistency. I've said this before, there are a lot of guys that are out there trying to improve and get better. An offensive line, the unit itself, is really a collective heartbeat if you will. When one man does something that maybe is not exactly what we want, then it'll affect the other four guys. Usually, when that unit plays well, it's the result of all five of them – probably plus the tight ends – doing their job the right way, with the right technique and fundamentals. So just staying consistent with what we're trying to do. We need to approach each day as an opportunity to get better and improve those things. But repetition, good repetition on the practice field is where you build good habits. There's no shortcut to it. We just have to put the work in and stay consistent with our effort."

Q: What was it like having Bilal Nichols and Jonathan Hankins back?

Coach McDaniels: "It was good to see those guys back last week. Certainly, we now have more depth than what we've been practicing with, for sure. I think anytime you add players back, in this case two defensive linemen that we have some hopes for, it kind of reallocates the repetitions. It re-slots everyone into maybe a role that maybe fits them perfectly, or better than what we were doing before. I see those guys as guys that can contribute. They're certainly vying for different roles across the front on our defensive line. I think now a position that I would say for the most part has been a little bit thin during the course of camp, has now kind of taken a boost here. Now it feels like we have some more depth up front, some more combinations. We bumped Kendal Vickers out to the end a little bit this last week, because we have a little bit more depth inside. It allows us to make some moves and some decisions that maybe we didn't have the flexibility to make earlier, which affects and impacts the entire defense."

Q: How did the team make it injury-wise yesterday, and how do you feel winning in preseason cultivates the team to win in necessary games?

Coach McDaniels: "The injury report and all that – I don't have all the information yet.

You saw [Jordan] Jenkins go down and we'll see where Jordan is at today. But it didn't feel like we were bad off relative to what we heard last night. Again, we'll confirm that later, once we hear from the medical people after the guys have come in. I think we all we all play this game to win and so we don't treat these games any differently than we would treat a regular season game in terms of our effort to achieve the goal. We may not use everything that we would use in a regular season game to ultimately win the game relative to scheme and those types of things. But, within the game plan that we've put together, which is usually fairly basic, we're trying to win. I thought our offense, after they took the lead on us there and the fourth quarter, thought our offense responded. [Offensive Coordinator] Mick [Lombardi] put together a good drive with the offensive staff there in the fourth quarter and got us down the field and we were able to retake the lead with Daniel [Carlson] making the kick. And then you're playing two-minute defense and trying to stop in two minute defense and force them to kick a fairly long field goal to try to take the lead on us. We're fortunate that he missed it, and then we're able to kind of finish it out with the four-minute offense. All the situational plays and all the things that come up in a game, whether it's a preseason or regular season game, they're meaningful. We can learn from them, I thought our team was into it. They understood what the situations were and what we're trying to get done. And I think that's great preparation for us as we move forward.

Q: How has it been delegating playcalling and what are you looking forward to most about the upcoming joint practices against your old team in the New England Patriots?

Coach McDaniels: "First of all, I think it's been a great experience for our guys. Not only [Offensive Coordinator] Mick [Lombardi] in terms of calling a few halves here, but I think just our staff working together; we're literally going through our process after each possession – in between series, halftime, pregame, postgame. We're going to do that here in a little bit when we meet as a staff and go back through the game. So, we're trying to simulate everything we need to simulate that we're going to do during the course of our normal game. For a young coach – I was in that position, certainly – that hadn't called plays before, just to have that experience and that opportunity to do it in an environment that's a real game, I don't know that you can duplicate in practice, when you’re reading through a script. I think that’s invaluable for that anybody that's doing it and certainly for our staff that's new together. And these joint practices, they're great opportunities for us to compete against somebody else. I'm sure all of our guys are tired of doing one-on-ones against each other. They all know each other very well. They've seen the routes, they've seen the rushes, they've seen the past protection sets. They what to expect. This is going to give our team an opportunity to compete against somebody new, to work our fundamentals and techniques against a different scheme. We're not really going to go through a big scouting report about what we're going to see, what we're not going to see. Whatever happens on the field happens, happens. It's going to test our ability to communicate on the field and solve problems without really a lot of preparation, which is a great opportunity for us to test where we are on that. Just go out and really test where we're at in terms of our overall ability as a unit to perform, whether it's a special team unit, defensively, offensively. We're going to we're going to hit a lot of different situations in the next couple of days here. It should be an opportunity for us to really improve our football team and that's what we're looking forward to doing."

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