Raiders Head Coach Jon Gruden
OPENING STATEMENT: “It’s hard to swallow right now. It’s a terrible way to lose a game. I really admired the way we compete, but until we start closing out games we will continue to be disappointed. That’s a reflection on me
obviously. I don’t regret taking a knee. We wanted to give the Dolphins the ball with as little time left as possible with no timeouts. I thought we did that, 19 seconds left on our 25-yard line. They made a desperation play, and we had a penalty on top of that. It’s inexcusable. I’ll be happy to answer any questions I can.”
Q: What were the conversations you were having on whether to score the touchdown or settle for the field goal? Did you at any point think they’re giving us a touchdown here, let’s just go ahead and take that and take
our chances?
Coach Gruden: “Well we did that against Kansas City, honestly. We scored with a minute fifteen left and [Patrick] Mahomes went down and beat us. We felt the play was to eliminate all the clock and all the timeouts and put
them with their backs against the wall with 19 seconds lefts. I don’t regret it. I didn’t want [Ryan] Fitzpatrick to have the ball he was doing a good job in the second half, and I didn’t want him to be in a four down situation. He’s
a gun slinger, he was hot. That’s all I can say. I don’t regret it one bit, I just regret the results.”
Q: Going back to the play where you could have scored a touchdown and maybe add a two point conversion and even if they did drive down the punt would have only…
Coach Gruden: “There’s a lot of ways to look at this. I don’t want to interrupt anybody, but look there’s a lot of ways to look at this. Nineteen seconds left on your own 25-yard line with no timeouts. I’ve called plays a long time
and the probability of getting that done is remote. There’s no guarantee if they get the ball that they go for two, I’m not going to get in all the scenarios. We played it exactly like we wanted to play it. It was a heck of a job by our offense closing the deal I thought, but unfortunately they made a desperation play and the penalty was horrific.”
Q: Could you please discuss Derek Carr’s performance with the groin injury and how he played tonight?
Coach Gruden: “I thought he did all he could do. I thought he showed a lot of toughness. Obviously not converting on third down, I think his mobility perhaps played into that a little bit. This is a great football team, a great
defensive team – as good as we’ve seen all year. They throw every look at you that they can prepare for. I thought Derek did a great job, and I thought he did enough to win tonight.”
Q: When they switched quarterbacks to Ryan Fitzpatrick how did that change the look for your defense?
Defensively, you guys were having your way most of the game.
Coach Gruden: “I think we just missed a couple tackles. The running back got out of trouble and made a 60-yard touchdown after we scored and missed the extra point. And Fitzpatrick gives his guys chances that most
quarterbacks don’t take. He’s willing to throw the ball down the field in tight windows. Once again, we didn’t register a turnover on defense and a pass rush wasn’t good enough and he got us. He got us.”
Q: Was Josh Jacobs hurt during the game? How did that affect the plays?
Coach Gruden: “Yeah, a little bit. He had an IV and he wasn’t feeling real good coming in tonight. They’re a hard team to run the ball against. Like I said, defensively in the last several weeks of the season they have been one of the very best teams I’ve seen on tape.”
Q: Is there anything Darren Waller does that amazes you anymore or do you just expect it all the time?
Coach Gruden: “He’s a great player. He plays such a major role in so many different positions. He’s one of the best players I’ve ever seen play football.”
Raiders QB Derek Carr
Q: Was this game as hard as any of the games that slipped away in your past seven years?
Carr: “Yeah, this one might be the hardest. That’s tough, it’s a tough way to go out, especially with all the emotion of the week for me. Just being able to play this game, I’m just so thankful. To watch it go like that, I’m sick for our
organization, I’m sick for our defense, I’m sick for our team, I’m sick for all those guys. My heart feels for them, my heart feels for our fans. To be so excited, we take the lead and then it’s gone, I feel bad for our fans. It’s tough, it’s not for everybody, but this business, like I always tell people, it’s not for everybody, but it is for me. I’m going to keep fighting and I’m going to keep doing what I do. I’m going to keep doing my job to the best of my ability, controlling what I can control, keep it pushing man, and I’m going to enjoy life. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Q: Was everybody on the same page on the final drive with not scoring a touchdown?
Carr: “I know you can think of a million different scenarios – the way we could’ve handled that. I thought we did it perfect, I don’t regret it. You take all their timeouts away, you take all the time off the clock – as much as you think –and you just expect to win that game. Lord knows I know if the outcome isn’t what we want, there is going to be a lot of questions, but the way Coach handled that was perfect. His plays were perfect, his communication and coaching staff were perfect. The only thing we regret is not finishing it in a win.”
Q: When it comes to you as a veteran, how do you go about telling your younger players how to move forward from a game like this and how to improve? What messages do you try to draw?
Carr: “Oh man, I go to these guys and, like you said there are a lot of young guys on this team. It sucks to say but we’re building something, you know. And sometimes you have to do that with young pieces and for some of us old guys little things can get frustrating at times. But I’ve been there. I’ve been in their shoes and I just try my best to encourage them and let them know that not all days feel like this in this league. It’s not always like this. I’ve had plenty of highs and plenty lows in this league just like everybody and you know, crap happens in the NFL. But what can’t change is your attitude and the way you come into work everyday. As soon as that starts to change, you’ve been defeated. I’ve caught myself in that place sometimes where you start getting a little bit angrier or this or that.
You just got to be you. You got to be yourself and you got to give it all you got. At the end of the day, if you’re supposed to be here and play, you’re supposed to be here and play. If not, try and figure it out another way. You
know, that’s all it is. If you spend too much time thinking about what everyone else thinks or whatever anyone else has to say that’s not what got you here in the first place. So, I just try and encourage them in that way. This is not for the faint of heart. This is not for the weak-minded people. Being a Raider is for tough hard nose people, that’s for sure. When we started to go on a run and win some games and things like that, everyone got a feel of what it is like and then you get punched in the mouth and kicked to the dirt a little bit. You get a feel of what that’s like too.
It’s hard for me and some of the older guys, obviously. To have to do that again and have those conversations again. But like I said, I’m a Raider, bro. I’m going to give this place everything I got all the time. I’m going to
encourage these guys all the time and we’re going to be alright. I’ve been there. I’ve been through this just like they have.”
Q: When did you know you were going to be available to play this week?
Carr: “Friday morning, after the game on Thursday. I told coach, I said: ‘You asked me one thing when you showed up, just be available. I said that I’ll be available, I’ll play this week.’ I sent him a video of me downstairs doing some drops and moving in the pocket, things like that. I didn’t tell him how much it hurt to do that, but I told him that I’ll be alright. Throughout the week our training staff did a fantastic job. I thank the Lord for keeping it together for me tonight with whatever is going on. Our training staff did a fantastic job of helping me getting ready to play in this game and finish my season. Finishing this season means a lot to me, this hasn’t been everything we wanted as a team, but I really want to finish this one out.”
Q: Did it take you a while to get warmed up tonight and how were you in terms of your mobility?
Carr: “Yeah, you know my top gear isn’t my top gear right now, if I even have one, jokingly. That scramble drill to Nelly [Nelson Agholor] was I had at that moment. I remember coming to the sideline and just wished I was a
hundred percent because there were a few times where I was like, ‘Man!’ I felt like I could’ve created a little bit longer or got around the edge, things like that. You know, it’s tough but we were able to still go out and score 25
points on a team that only gives out 18 a game. You know, they’re a top-two defense in the league, so I was thankful for that. It would’ve broken my heart if I had hindered our team in any way on a certain play or anything
like that. I’m sure if I watch the game and it’ll be ‘Dang! I wish I could’ve done that or that.’ I was just thankful that I was able to play and help our team a little bit.”
Raiders LB Raekwon McMillan
Q: How do you put into words and prospective what just happened out there with 19 seconds to go? You guys looked like you had it all wrapped up?
McMillian: “You got to execute at the end of the game as a defense.”
Q: Do you have any explanation at all of what happened in the last 19 seconds?
McMillian: “No. It’s just about execution as a total defense. We can’t put ourselves in that situation. We just have to finish strong.”
Q: How did you feel about the way you guys have played up to that point defensively, especially in the first half and in the third quarter? How did Ryan Fitzpatrick entering the game change the dynamic of the game?
McMillian: “That’s a 15-plus-year vet. He was able to sit on the sidelines, I don’t really know what they got going on. He obviously came in and brought a spark to their offense. You just got to finish. There is no explanation, it is what it is. We got to finish.”
Q: Did you wear the green dot this game and what did that mean to you coming this far and now you are on defense calling plays out and a new experience with a new defensive coordinator?
McMillan: “It’s Week 16 now, I had a whole year to get acclimated to having the green dot. You are the main communicator out there for the defense and, like I said, we just got to go out there and finish together. It’s no
excuses or nothing like that, we just have to go out there and finish.”
Raiders TE Darren Waller
Q: You’ve been with the Raiders long enough to go through some pretty tough endings, but is this as tough as it gets?
Waller: “Yes, absolutely. It was tough. There’s no way around it. It just hurts, I don’t know what else to say, but it hurts.”
Q: How do you rebound from that loss as a team? Not just the short term, but the long term when you’re trying to improve for the next season?
Waller: “I feel that you need to go back with an honest evaluation. It’s easy to look at that last play, but you have to take the good and bad out of the game. I feel like the defense did a lot of good things in this game. I’m proud of how they played. The ending wasn’t what we wanted, but I feel like if you can take the good and the bad you can move forward to the following week without having things linger if you look at it honestly and take everything out of it. If you love playing football, of course it’s a results-driven league, but as us as players and coaches, we’re just so in the process and we just need to always remember that playing football is fun. We have one more opportunity to do that. We’re promised one more opportunity. We’re not promised anything in the future and if you go out there and view the game like that you can bounce back and go to that next game with a different perspective.”
Q: I know you guys don’t make a habit of thinking too much about other players’ injuries and a lot of people didn’t think Derek Carr was going to play tonight, but there he is leaping for a touchdown on the second
possession of the game and putting you guys in position to win. Could you talk about how he played tonight and what energy it gave you?
Waller: “I was very proud of how Derek played tonight and how he responded throughout the week. His attitude. He wasn’t worried, he didn’t wear any of that on his face or in the way he was carrying himself. He was very focused. It’s like he didn’t miss a beat. Just having him out there was incredible. I saw something earlier in the week of a graphic of all the injuries that he’s had and he just hasn’t missed games. There’s only a couple games that he missed. It’s incredible how tough he is and just the positive energy he brought tonight.”
Q: I know that there is a couple of different ways that you can handle that situation down by the goal line, a couple schools of thought, but were you looking at the clock and thinking that we should have went for the touchdown? Waller: “Yeah, you can look at it both ways, but with us we went with draining the clock down and kicking the field goal. You have to play complimentary football and trust your defense in that situation and that is what we did. Things like that, what happened are not characteristic of our defense and will be characteristic of our defense going forward. It happened but I don’t think that defines them on this night or as a whole. I feel like hindsight is 20/20. We could have done things different, but we went with what we went with and we felt good about it at the time.”
Q: It was obviously a tough loss, but how much satisfaction can you take out of breaking a couple of Raiders records and doing it in a world that is called the tight end oasis?
Waller: “It is definitely cool. It means a lot to break a record. I don’t think that I have ever done anything like that before. It’s cool and I appreciate everything that goes into that. The quarterback throwing it, the time that he needs to throw it from the offensive line, the receivers that are running their routes and clearing out areas for me to make a play. There is a lot of people that goes into that. I feel like playing against Eric [Rowe] tonight definitely brought the best out of me. He has a lot of coverage ability being a former corner. I think that we were both freshman and we played against each other in the Sun Bowl and he was post-safety at the time. He was just a very versatile player and can do a lot of things. His ability alone brought the best out of me. It was a battle out there between us.”
Q: You were talking about how this is a bit uncharacteristic of the defense. Would you say even though despite how the results went down the way that it did, did you think that it would be good in terms of a learning
experience to try to teach your young team how to close games better?
Waller: “Absolutely, definitely a great learning experience. Something that when you feel this you know what it’s like, and you know how it feels, and you know that you don’t want to feel that anymore. I feel like the defense can definitely build off of this and learn how to close games because once we get out there and start closing games like I know they are capable of doing, that puts our team on a whole other level. I’m excited to see them do that, and I know they will do that in the future.”
Q: How would you describe the highs and lows of the season so far?
Waller: “Man, that’s just life. That’s football. That’s the NFL. It’s moments of jubilation, and people are pumping the Super Bowl bandwagon and everything’s great. Then there’s moments that are crushing, the losses that you have its’ hard, and to go through all these things for 17 weeks, 20 weeks including preseason and things like that. It takes a lot of mental toughness. It takes a lot of integrity to go through the season and continue to show up regardless of the results and that’s why I love being a part of this team.”
Q. How hard is it for you, having these dominant games like you’ve had these last four games and this one especially. Not to be like “Put it in my hands, put this bowl moment in my hands and I won’t let you down”?
Waller: “Yes, I feel like any player, skill player, or individual player would love that. At the end of the day, I trust what the coaches are putting into action, putting into the plan and that’s how it’s going to go down. We are going to live by that and die by that of course. I will be ready whenever the ball does come my way. It could be a play that’s geared to me, it could be a play that’s not geared to me. It could end up coming to me off of a scramble drill or
something like that. I just focus on staying ready whenever an opportunity comes to me to so that I don’t have to
get ready.”
