 |   |  |
POSTGAME QUOTES
NOVEMBER 22, 2009
On the game:
I want, first of all, to give the Raiders team credit for hanging in there today. I think, as I told our guys, this is what happens when we don’t take care of the football and take care of things the correct way. And all throughout today, we had a lot of opportunity. We didn’t take care of business when we had opportunity to make third-down stops and we allowed the fourth-down completion at the end and obviously the play for the touchdown and the touchdown at the end of the first half. So I think our guys played hard today, but I don’t think we played winning football. We had penalties in the beginning of the game on offense. We kept overcoming them, but they set us back and obviously not taking care of the football. And not getting points and we missed a field goal. All those things today you can’t do. We didn’t play well enough today to win. So give credit to the Raiders.
On the focus of the game:
I thought the focus was good. We had a good week to practice. We came out and didn’t play winning football long enough and consistently enough.
On QB Bruce Gradkowski:
We didn’t stop him when it counted. Give him credit.
On the blitz:
I think they got up there and crowded the line a little bit and pressured the run. And we anticipated that and they have done that in the past. We ran the ball effectively. We had 160 something yards rushing, but we didn’t score and that’s key because we had fumbles and other things. We took the sack in the red zone later on and didn’t get the field goal. We had enough opportunities in the second half to at least have another six points.
On the shift of momentum:
I think they took control the game when they scored the last touchdown and then we fumbled the kickoff. I thought we’d win the game in overtime if we didn’t win it at the last series. That’s when I thought they took control of the game.
Yeah, I think at the end of the day, looking back at this film, you have to first of all give them credit. They had a good game plan. They played well. We just gave them too many opportunities to stay in the game. We kept giving them the ball. With turnovers and kicking field goals opposed to getting points instead the red zone and just let them hang around too long. We talked about it all week. We knew we couldn’t do that. We knew that they were a very talented football team even though their record may not show it. But personnel wise, they have a lot of good players. And we knew if we gave them opportunities, they were capable of beating us and we gave them too many opportunities.
On the offense:
Absolutely the turnovers and the red zone issues, but I think the main thing is that we got outplayed. We knew coming in that they were a very capable team and they have a lot of talent and they can win games. In the end we have to give them a lot of credit, they capitalized on our mistakes and were able to make plays.
On the game:
We played a great Raiders team, you know, despite their record. We saw it all week on film, their good, they are really good. They get a lot of push and cause a lot of havoc and other than that they played really well on both sides of the ball.
On facing Nnamdi Asomugha:
Nnamdi is the best in the game hands down, period. He will always be, he will always be until someone goes at him on a consistent basis and it seems like no one tries to, not even us.
On the defense:
We just weren’t executing you know, we shot ourselves in the foot and handed them the game. It comes down to them making plays and we didn’t.
On the game:
A tremendous effort by our football team in all three phases, but the most important thing today was the game ball goes to Marquis Cooper’s family. This was a day we planned to honor him as a football team and it certainly turned out the way you would write it up. Good job by our team really in all three phases, it wasn’t perfect. I thought we got out to a rough start but once we settled in, somewhere about the third or fourth series on each side of the ball. I thought we were able to maintain, control field position, if we lost it, got it back. It was fun to watch, fun to coach in, I admire our team for how hard they played in all three phases.
On the fourth quarter:
I just think there was some energy and belief that we still have something to play for and that we are still playing for each other. We’re still trying to straighten out this football team and its path and its return to greatness. It’s not been easy, it’s been very difficult quite honestly, but days like this make it feel like you’re making a stride that way. I just think we have a lot of guys that care about what goes on this season.
On QB Bruce Gradkowski:
Well he was pretty good. I thought he was a little too amped early in the game, made a bad decision early in the first drive, and the next one kind of got away from him. He needed to settle down and that was expected. We kind of expected him to be a little wired. But after that he was pretty darn good. They brought some pressure a couple times and forced him to have to pull the ball down and move with it and he did a great job with that. And then I don’t know you can ask for a better closing drive, anything other than what he did there. We had a chance to win it earlier, or tie excuse me, on the one that was intercepted. I thought he knew where to go with the ball, made great decisions all day and put his team in a position where he could win at the end.
On WR Louis Murphy:
Well as I’ve said before, both those young guys Louis and Darrius both, they need to make plays like that. Darrius had the huge third down conversion over on their boundary. The ball was on time, great catch, got out of bounds. Louis makes the touchdown play to tie the game there with an effort after the catch. So that’s part of the growth, the more those kind of plays happen for them, the more they’ll start to grow and their confidence will come. But as I’ve said all along I think they’ll be pretty good. We just need to get them in a position to make more plays like that
On if he was tempted to go for it on fourth-and-one with 7:50 left:
Not really just because I felt like we kind of got out of whack on that third down play and we’re okay with it. So no, enough time to go…defense if you noticed got some stops, even gave up a couple big plays, but were able to stop them after the big plays in the second half. So I was pretty confident we’d get a chance at the end there.
On the next game Thursday at Dallas:
Fortunately we don’t have enough time to have a let down. We have to go to work tonight and get ready to go on Thursday, but I’d like to see us come out and like I just told them connect the dots again and play the game the way you’re supposed to game day. Our preparation, our effort, all of that has been outstanding but what matters is what you do on the day you play the game.
On how the defense has played the last few weeks:
I think we’ve made some improvement in a lot of areas on defense but at the same time we need to keep getting better as a football team. But it’s tough to play defense on a team that struggles to score points and turns it over as much as we have thus far. In a lot of ways they get an unfair deal. Hopefully we can grow from this offensively as well as defensively.
On the touchdown pass to Louis Murphy:
On that play, I just went through my progression and Louis was the second look. I kind of saw the D-back playing on top of him, so I threw a back shoulder ball and he made a great play. A great play to catch the ball and get it in the end zone.
On rewarding a good defensive effort:
The defense has been playing their tails off all week. Last couple of weeks, all year really. We owed it to them to give it back and they held their own throughout the whole game. I looked at Nnamdi like ‘come on man, we just need one play here.’ Somehow they get a turnover and we’re back on the field. They make big plays when they need to and it’s great to see that. The most exciting thing is it was a team effort today by all three aspects of the game. The offense, defense and special teams came together for a nice win.
On the game-tying touchdown:
I was in the slot and I just had a seam. If it’s Cover 2, I post across the middle, and if it’s Cover 1, I just stay up the seam. It was Cover 1, and I stayed up the seam. Bruce [Gradkowski] made the back shoulder throw that we had been practicing all week, and it was a successful play.
On the win:
I’m just so proud of the team. We played well in all aspects of the game. Special teams forced a fumble and we were able to hit the field goal. So it does a lot for the confidence of the team, but we still have to come back in and go to work tomorrow.
On beating another winning team at home:
That’s the thing about the NFL – just like seeing Kansas City beat the Steelers, it’s about who shows up that day. If you aren’t showing up, you’re going to get beat. Just looking at the guys today, there was a lot of excitement, even when we were down. If we come out like that every week, we’re going to win some games.
On the game:
It was a great effort; the second half for us was probably our best second half all year. We just kept fighting and started to figure them out. To see everyone on all three phases of the game play hard, it was great and it was great to end with a win like that.
