Raiders' Josh McDaniels Wednesday Silver and Black Update

HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raiders (5-8) are ready to take on the New England Patriots (7-6) this weekend as they return to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Moments ago, Josh McDaniels talked about the state of the franchise and looked ahead to this weekend.

You can watch the entire interview and read the transcript below:

Head Coach Josh McDaniels

Opening Statement: “Before I get going on the Patriots, I think it's appropriate to pass along condolences, thoughts, and prayers to Mike Leach's family. Those of us who've coached for a while, we've either been impacted by him, or somebody that he worked with. We've taken things from him, stolen schemes from him, enjoyed watching him do what he does. He's been obviously great to a lot of young coaches who I know personally, and he's impacted a lot of us in some way shape or form. So, condolences, thoughts, and prayers to his family from his passing. The Patriots, we're into it now. Got a little introduction into them yesterday, coming off the three-day break with the players. And now we're obviously getting ready for our first full practice today. This is a team that played well Monday night, they're playing well. And it's a team that you're going to have to do a good job in all three phases. They play really good complimentary football. Nobody scores more off of turnovers than they do. They force a lot of takeaways. They play really stingy defense. They don't give up a lot of big plays, it's hard to drive the ball against them. They make you convert three or four third-downs in a drive, which is always challenging against them. They always have something new for you that you're going to have to adjust to. Their offense has got a lot of talented guys. Obviously, I'm familiar with some of them. Some of them, I'm getting familiar with as we watch tape. But they can run it, they can throw it, they've got a lot of different guys who can do a lot of different things. And this is obviously one of the best teams that we're going to play, if not the best team, in the kicking game. So, the returner is having a fabulous year. They have a lot of really good cover players – [Matthew] Slater, [Brenden] Schooler. I mean, there are a bunch of them, and they do a great job in the kicking game every week. And so, we'll have our hands full with all three phases. Our guys, I think, are excited to get out there on the field and start working today for them."

Q: You guys have three starters who would be eligible to come back from IR this week; Darren Waller, Hunter Renfrow and Divine Deablo. Do you feel good about their chances to maybe get out there and practice today?

Coach McDaniels: “Divine, no, just based on the situation relative to the surgery and those kinds of things. So, no, you won't see him out there today or this week. Hunter and Darren, you'll see them out there. So, we'll start the clock today. Again, whether or not that's going to turn into activating them to the 53 this week or not, we're going to have to see how the next few days go. I mean, both of them are coming off of injuries. We haven't really seen them practice in a while in regard to how those things are going to respond to those kinds of things. So, we're going to get them out there and we're going to kind of evaluate how it goes. We're hopeful, but obviously we are going to let their bodies tell us a lot here as we go through the next three days.”

Q: Playing through the finish line is the focus right now, but from a bigger picture standpoint, and whenever Hunter Renfrow and Darren Waller do get back out there, how important do you feel like it is for your process moving forward that you do get an idea for what this offense could look like when you have your full arsenal of talent?

Coach McDaniels: “I mean, look, obviously, every coach would love to have every guy healthy. It's just not the nature of this game. And I think we've had a lot of guys step in and play very well when they've had their opportunities, and that'll continue to happen. Obviously, we're going to need that. But if you can get a good look at them a couple of weeks, two, three, four, whatever it is – I think that gives you a better idea of what you might be able to do, or what you might have been able to produce with the group together. But our focus is going to be on this week, as you mentioned, and trying to do whatever we can to prepare for the Patriots and put our best performance out there regardless of who is or isn't active on Sunday."

Q: When you started watching film on the Patriots this week, how similar do things look?

Coach McDaniels: “There's some things obviously I see that I'm very familiar with. But like always, there's a lot of things that you see from them that they've created, and they've come up with. They do different things each week against the opponent based on what they think gives them the best chance to win. And it's very challenging because what you see on tape is not necessarily what you're going to get. I think being able to follow your rules and communicate, and whatever you see you're going to have to be able to handle it. And so, in many regards these weeks remind me of training camp in terms of: 'Hey, we don't know what the defense or the offense or the other side of the ball is going to do, and there's a challenge involved in that.’ And so, we're going to study the players. We're going to try to know the strengths and weaknesses as best we can. Certainly, we know some of the tendencies, but there's some of what I see that I don't know on any side of the ball. And then there's some other things that obviously I have had some experience with."

Q: How much do you avoid a chess match of: 'Well, they think I'm going to do this, so I'll do this.' How do you maybe avoid doing that?

Coach McDaniels: “I mean, I think there's a lot made of that sometimes, maybe a lot more than what really is useful, quite honestly. I mean, they know what our cadence is. We're not going to change that. We know what their cadence is, and it is what it is. You can change it here and there and make subtle adjustments if you want to try to protect something. I think you've just got to be smart about that. Like, once you start overdoing that, then the week becomes more about that and not about what happens after the ball is snapped. So, our focus is going to be on trying to prepare as hard as we can so we can play well when the ball is snapped."

Q: Can you talk about the progression of Jermaine Eluemunor from the time that you were with him from New England to now?

Coach McDaniels: “I have some experience with Jermaine, and we go back a little way. I'm really proud of the way Jermaine has fought. His career didn't necessarily start out the way he wanted it to, bouncing between guard and tackle and changed teams a couple times. I think Jermaine, credit to him, just stuck with it and continues to try to improve as a football player. He’s carved out a good role for us here this year and played very admirably. Obviously, I have a good feeling for Jermaine. I've got a little bit of history with him, and I'm excited to see him have some success with his career and hopefully he can continue to do that. I know he wants to continue to get better. He works hard at it each week, each day in practice, and I'm hoping he has a good week this week. He's got a big challenge.”

Q: How do you feel like Derek Carr has acclimated to your new system and performed overall this season?

Coach McDaniels: “I mean, Derek works really hard. He's very smart. I've said it before, unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to look at it, he's learned a handful systems in his lifetime. Honestly, I don't think Derek really made a big deal out of that because I think for him it's: 'Hey, this is the process. I'm going to learn it.’ I'm going to learn how to try to master the things that are important to him. He put in a lot of time and effort in the spring, in the summer, and he understands what we're trying to do, I think. And again, you can only be as far along as you are in the first year. But I have no qualms with what he's attempted to do in terms of trying to learn it and understand, and I think he's at a pretty fairly high level right now."

Q: You mentioned the challenge that Jermaine Eluemunor is going to have this week with that Patriots defensive line, but how big of a challenge will that be for your whole offensive line? What’s the health status of Alex bars?

Coach McDaniels: “Alex, he's working hard to try to get back as soon as he can. I don't know if this week or not he'll make it, but he's doing everything he can, I know that. Yeah, this is a really good group from top to bottom. They have depth, they’re physical, they're big inside. They're long. They have a lot of guys who play on the edge: [Matthew] Judon, [Josh] Uche, [Anfernee] Jennings. I mean, they move [Ja’Whaun] Bentley out there sometimes. Deatrich Wise [Jr.] is out there. So, there's a lot of different bodies that they will throw at you in their alignments and in their different defensive packages. It’s not only a challenge to handle their physicality, their length, their pass rush – they do a tremendous job in their pass rush games executing the things that they're trying to do – but it's also a challenge individually for our guys because you have to get familiar not with just one guy who's going to line up across from you but it might be three or four different people based on the spacing that they choose to use with their fronts, or the different packages that they're in. So, kind of a who's who. Who's across from me? What are his strengths or weaknesses? It might be different than somebody else's. There are some inherent challenges in that, that we're hard at work obviously trying to identify what the different match-ups are going to be like and what we need to protect ourselves against. I'd say from top to bottom, this is probably as good a group as we've seen.”

Q: How would you describe the influence that Bill Belichick has had on you throughout your entirety of your coaching career? And also, what did you kind of get from him the second go-round after Denver when you went back?

Coach McDaniels: “Yeah. I mean, look, it's obvious I wouldn't be here, or even in the National Football League, if it wasn't for Bill. Robert [Kraft], Jonathan [Kraft] gave me a great opportunity a long time ago. He's been invaluable to me in a lot of ways. Hard to measure all of them. Obviously, football background, understanding how this league works. I got to see firsthand how to try to do it the right way. His philosophy on everything: off-season, training camp, in-season, postseason, evaluations, draft, free agency. He gave a lot of his time to me, and I was able to hopefully pick up as much as I could. Still I got a lot to learn. He was a great mentor for me, not only in football, but also just in in terms of when I got there. I was 23-24 years old, so basically I grew up there. I'm indebted to them forever for that. And getting to go back there after I had my experience with Denver, I think that was really important period of time for me because I knew what I had done and what I had experienced, and I got to kind of take some time and really try to soak in: ‘Alright, I know I didn't do that very well.’ And now I'm watching him the second time around, and maybe the first time I didn't even know to look for it, and now I'm looking for different things. How he handles adversity, what he's doing here in the off-season, how he's handling the bye week? What's he doing in April, May, June, etc., that maybe I wasn't even clued in on that existed before I left. And so, it gave me a great opportunity to kind of look at it through a different lens and really try to take some time to process those things while I was watching somebody who's obviously the best that's ever done it do it again. The time for me was important for me personally and obviously, like I said, he's always given to me time, attention and information. He's been very open and honest with me about everything, and I wouldn't be standing here if it wasn’t for him.”

Q: How hard or easy is it to compartmentalize when you're going up against your mentor? But at the same time, this is the league, and everybody knows everybody anyway. You've beat him once already in Denver, but to play him again, how strange is that?

Coach McDaniels: “Honestly, it's a unique opportunity. And I would say that I look forward to all these opportunities, they don't come out around often. I know he's going to get his football team ready to play on Sunday at [1:05]. I don't think he's going to care a whole lot about how much he mentored me or what he did and vice versa. And that's not a bad thing. I don't think he would expect anything less from me than to just compete and do everything we can to help our team win, and I know that's what he's going to do. So, I look forward to the competition. I know they do it the right way. I'm eager to have our team go through our week of preparation here and get ready for a hell of a football game on Sunday."

Q: When you look at some of the mental errors that happened on Thursday -- I think there is the sense sometimes where if there aren’t some drastic consequences then it's being almost condoned. From a coach's perspective, in terms of emphasizing it and talking about it and coaching it, there's only so much that coach can do in talking. As far as any kind of consequences at all, what can you do to try to improve that, so it doesn't happen?

Coach McDaniels: “I think each one is different, each situation you have to look at individually. The reality is -- we've said this a lot -- it's an imperfect game. I haven't watched a game all year where somebody played perfect. There are a lot of plays in every game, there are a lot of mistakes being made on both sides of the ball, not intentionally, and I don't think anybody on our team has done anything intentionally to try to harm our opportunity to win. They do their best. We try to coach it the best we can. We're absolutely trying to hold everybody accountable to a championship standard in terms of the way we prepare, the way we play and the way we coach. So again, some of that comes from experience, some of it comes from we've had to learn some hard lessons. But sometimes those lessons are the most valuable to you as you move forward. They don't feel good now, but hopefully as we move forward you don't make them again. If you can stop the repeat errors, then you're making some progress. So, like I said, it doesn't feel good in the moment, but you hold everybody to the same standard and try to continue to improve them."

Q: You guys moved on from John Simpson the other day. Was there anything he was not doing? Was there maybe something in his preparation that you guys didn't like?

Coach McDaniels: "No, it's just those are tough. Dave and I, we've spent a lot of time talking about the roster in general. John [Simpson] did some really good things here and we just felt like we're going to give some other guys some opportunities now and see what they can do with them that they've earned, that's it."

Q: You guys put Jayon Brown on IR the other day and Divine Deablo is probably not able to come back this week. You're getting a little thin at linebacker, how do you feel about the group?

Coach McDaniels: "You'v got any snaps left in you Tashan? No, you're right. We added a couple guys now on the practice squad. So, in terms of overall bodies, we still have six here. And like we've done all year, we'll bring them up if that's the right thing to do relative to the game and playing the game. Curtis [Bolton], Luke [Masterson] and Darien [Butler] have been active a lot here, so we'll just make sure that we get them prepared and ready to go. Luke has played a lot of defense so far this year, and that won't change. We'll get Darien and Curtis ready to go, if need be, and like I said, the other guys that we just added, they're going to be trying to catch up as fast as they can too to help us either in a kicking game or on defense. It's not a challenge that is unique to us. As you know, New England is dealing with a bunch of different injury deals. Your depth becomes really important, I would say, in November and December every year. That's why it's important to try to look at the roster on the whole as 69 guys, not 53. Because at the end of the day, we're going to need a bunch more than 53 to complete the season."

Q: Did you ever have a chance to talk to Coach Leach? Like have a real conversation?

Coach McDaniels: "I never did. Lincoln Riley is a good friend of mine. Obviously, he was a significant influence in Lincoln's life and a number of other guys who have crossed paths with Kliff Kingsbury. So, everybody that I know that has known him or spent quality time with Coach Leach, I mean they've said the same thing. He's a great human being. Everybody knows him as a great coach, and he was a great soundbite obviously, but a better person, and he'll be missed for sure."

The Raiders return to action at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Sunday, Dec. 18, 2022, when they host the New England Patriots. That game will kick off at 4:05 p.m. EST/1:05 p.m. PST and can be seen on FOX.

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