Las Vegas Raiders STC Tom McMahon from OTAs

The Las Vegas Raiders special teams’ coordinator, Tom McMahon, spoke from the Silver and Black NFL OTAs, and we have it all for you.

Darrell Craig Harris, Raiders Today

HENDERSON, Nev.—Under the influential leadership of Coach Antonio Pierce, the Las Vegas Raiders are riding a wave of optimism, firmly positioned in the heart of NFL OTAs.

Special teams’ coordinator Tom McMahon spoke after a recent OTA practice; we have the transcript for you.

You can watch the entire press conference below, or if you prefer, you can listen by clicking right here.

Special Teams Coordinator Tom McMahon

Q: What was your initial reaction to the new kickoff rule and how has that revamped your overall strategy to teach the players coming into OTAs? Coach McMahon: “Excitement, number one. Very excited, and the players are excited. If you think about it, last year in the Super Bowl – I’ll just use that as an example – 13 touchbacks. Now it's going to be 13 ballsthat are returned. So, returners are excited, and their value is going to skyrocket. For example, you’re a kick returner – we can put two back there, but let's just make it easy math because it’s easier for me. If you have one back there and you get 80 kickoffs, that guy is going to touch the ball 80 times possibly next year. And he's guaranteed that, where before it was only your best receiver or your halfbacks that are guaranteed touches. This guy is going to get 80, where last year we got 11. So, the value skyrockets. The value skyrockets for the position players because now they're covering every rep. So, the leading tackler in the league is going to probably go back to the early 2000s with 36 tackles on special teams, whereas it was only 16 tackles this last year. So, their value goes way up. As coaches, naturally we want to play every play. So, there's going to be 10 plays a game, five kickoffs, five kickoff returns that are added into what we're grading and what we actually have to play. We can't have the out of kicking the touch back anymore, or you're going to get the ball to 30 and you're going to give up big drive starts. So, we love that part of because now we're going to cover every rep, we get a chance to return every rep and we got to shed, block, tackle, and teach.”

Q: As the special teams coordinator, you have to figure out how to advance it as the return team and then also cover it as the coverage team. Can seeing it from one vantage point help from the other advantage point and vice versa? Coach McMahon: “There's no question. What we've tried to do really this last week, and even in the first two weeks of the offseason program, is let Daniel [Carlson] try to beat our returners. And when I say that, he's trying to put balls on the ground or he's trying to put balls in the air, and really, you're just playing in a 20-yard rectangle. So, if he can hit the 19-yard line one play and then the one-yard line the next, you got returners that don't know where it's going to go. And we can go when the ball hits the ground. So, the difference between the XFL and our model is we can go in the ball hits the ground, and we're back at the 40 (yard line). That's your advantage on kickoff, the kicker becomes more valuable also, because now if he can put the ball at the two edges of the rectangle, you got chance to get much, much better. We've learned a lot from our returners because our returners all of a sudden are beating him, and then the next day he beats them. So, we're finding out where to align these guys to get to the edges of the field, talk coming back to the middle, and so on and so forth.”

Q: With all the changes on special teams, do you have to go to Antonio Pierce and maybe ask for some more special teams reps in practice, just because there are so many changes? Coach McMahon: “Yes, but you got to be careful about running their legs out, so on and so forth. But the biggest thing is, for example, let's say I kickoff and I kickoff goals right here to you. That's the point of attack. We have to win on kickoff cover here, okay. The backside is still at the 40-yard line, so we're a long way away. Your point of attack, wherever the ball is kicked, these players are very, very important on kickoff, and they are also important on kickoff return. But it's one of those where the biggest thing he's given us is we get walkthrough time that's built into the practice at the end, so the players can visualize it because this is new to them. It's new to everybody. They've never done it. It's very awkward to watch a ball hit and then be able to go. And just remember within this play, what we want to do is take away space and speed. So, the 25-yard run is gone. And if you really think about what's the biggest difference, just remember that last year at the 40-yard line, guys are going 19 to 21 miles an hour. We're going zero. We're going to zero, so we're starting at nothing and you're right there at about five yards. You're waiting there to block me, so the collisions are at 7 miles an hour versus 19-20. So, it's a big difference.”

Q: Who are the blockers reading on the kickoff team to understand when they can go because they're going to have their backs to the ball? Coach McMahon: “To be up front with you, the blockers are going to have to go when the kickoff cover team goes. And when I say that, just imagine if you're looking back and I kicked off, and you stay looking until he catches it and then you turn, I'm already gone, and you are not going to be able to see me. It's like trying to fight somebody and your turned this way and they're right here, you're probably going to lose that. So, I'm going to have to go when you guys go. And you really watch their feet, so on and so forth. What they could do is they could drop down into a stance, little things to try to get you to false start, so there's some different things going on in the league.”

Q: You talked about learning from the returner some of what you have to do on kickoff. How much do you expect this to be an evolving process all season long, where you're still looking at things and evaluating? Coach McMahon: “I'll be honest with you, 100 percent of the season, because we're going to steal ideas from other people. It's brand new, it's something nobody's ever done. You're going to steal from each other, you're going to steal leverage from each other. I think it'll go all the way through the Super Bowl on the last play.”

Q: Do you like the new rule? Coach McMahon: “I love it. I love it, yes.”

Q: Does that just make you excited with all the things that you can come up with? Coach McMahon: “Yeah, what it comes down to is preparation. Great players, they prepare. And so, if I want to be great, I got to prepare and I got to come up with the answers before they get here. And then the answers that I think I have that are wrong, I have to be a teammate and say, ‘Hey, we're not doing this because this ain't going to work. Let's move the returners to this spot.’ I'll be honest with you, originally where we had them at the beginning of the offseason program is not where they're at right now. And I love that part. I learn from the players. They'll come over and they'll say, ‘Hey, Tom, don't put us here, put us here. We can get to these balls.’ And Daniel [Carlson] will say, ‘yeah, let him go there and then I'm going to do this and then we can,’ so I liked that part of it.”

Q: We talked about the extra practice time and how that could work out. What about in terms of selection of players that are going to be on special teams? Is there more of a kind of an emphasis on that of, hey, we're actually going to have to make plays every single time and we're going to have to talk about who's out there? Coach McMahon: “Yeah, I don't know that there's more of an emphasis. There's always been. And I'm just going to speak in this building, there's always been a great emphasis in the two years I've been here that we spend a lot of time on what players can help us make the plays. But to answer your question, I think on kickoff return, I think you're going to need a little more length. And when I say more length, it doesn't mean that a corner can't do it. But you need somebody with a little bit longer arms to sustain the blocks, you know what I mean? So, it's a little bit more length from a kickoff return standpoint, other than that, no. You're only going to be able to dress – and I think you guys all understand that – you got three tight ends, you got five linebackers, you got maybe four safeties. You got to find those guys that can win at the point of attack, and then if Will is a great backside player for us who can be that backside player, but you need two of them so that they don't know where you're going to kick the ball, at every spot. But you have to mix and match because you can't just be like, ‘Oh let's dress seven linebackers.’ You don't have them on your roster.”

Q: He kind of went under the radar last year, but DJ Turner really turned himself into a pretty darn good special teams player. What does that say about him, when he kind of came in with aspirations to be a wide receiver but figured out like this is going to get me onto the field and I got to maximize this? Coach McMahon: “Trust. He simply trusts himself. DJ doesn’t say a word, DJ just goes and if you tell him to do this release, he does that release. But he knows he'll succeed by doing that release, and he’s seen it on tape. Love DJ.”

Q: How much has Daniel Carlson embraced having to learn all the new kickoff changes? Coach McMahon: “He loves it. He's competitive. He wants to beat the returners every single day. I'm going to go out there and I want to be 10-for-10 if we have 10 kickoffs. I don’t want them to touch the ball, I want it to go into the endzone and I want to get a 20-yard line drive start, or I want them to have to come up and it hits and rolls and we're going as the balls on the ground to give that kickoff team an advantage. But he loves the challenge.”

Q: Just for clarification on the rules, if he kicks it out of the endzone they get it at the 30-yard line? Coach McMahon: “Yes sir.” Q: But if it hits the ground and goes through the endzone, it's the 20-yard line, correct? Coach McMahon: “Yes sir, but you have to down it. That’sthe other thing that is brand new in this league. It's a live ball. They haven't had a live ball in this league in a long time. So, if the ball hits and it stops in the endzone, it used to be dead because no one's touched it. You got to go down the ball. The only time a ball is dead is if it goes outside the rectangle. When I say the rectangle, the white lines, out of bounds, or through the end line, then it's dead.”

Q: You guys drafted Dylan Laube, a special teams ace at the FCS level. What do you think of him so far? Coach McMahon: “Strain. That’s it, he strains. You strain, everything's going to take care of itself. He's strains. High, high give a darn meter. He's strains, he's going to be just fine. He strains in every single thing he's trying to do. It’s that simple, one word.”

Q: Is the ideal scenario to land the ball in the rectangle area and roll it out of the endzone? Coach McMahon: “There's some scheme there. I think that the biggest thing is, from a rectangle standpoint, if I'm a returner, you want me to have to use the whole rectangle to get to the ball. You know what I'm saying? So, there's times you could possibly pin them on the 15, which would be better than a 20-yard touchback, but the kickers got to make this guy play the top 19-yard line to the one-yard line. For example, if I catch a ball at the 10, we just gave him 10 free yards. If we have the ball in our hands at the 15, 15 free yards. Now, if they get it at the 15 (yard line), but it was rolling and stopped, we just got a head start on them. So, what you're really looking for is the differential between when the ball hits and when they get it in their hands. How much time did we get down the field before he actually gets it in his hands? Like if you get 1.5 seconds that's 10 yards and he hasn't gotten his hands yet. So, there's some different things to look at.”

Q: Does Daniel have to change the way he kicks? Coach McMahon: “Yeah, you're not trying to get touchbacks. Just to be cutthroat with you, the hangtime doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. If he hits a one second ball to the one-yard line, love it. If it's a one second ball to the 19-yard line, love it. If it's a one second ball to the 10 outside the red line and it bounces and goes in. So, the faster a ball comes, the quicker these guys got to react. When it's in the air, I got more time to get underneath it.”

Q: When describing it, is it like a pitcher learning how to pitch a new pitch? Coach McMahon: “No, because these guys have all this stuff in their repertoire from before. You would hit line drives before in certain situations, you would hit balls to the one, versus balls that are short, which we used to call mortars. So, it's all there. It's just it's a different gig now knowing that they're going to return every single one.”

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