Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(Obviously there are a lot of things that go into a 48-20 loss. What would you say was the most glaring to you on the offense after the first two scoring drives?) – “First off, I think the Buffalo Bills proved why they are the team that our whole division is trying to beat. They’ve won it for how many years in a row now. They made some adjustments, and we didn’t, so to speak. I think it was kind of compounding. It was something that – I’ll start by making sure I’m doing right by the players, and us as a coaching staff, putting people in the right positions for success. Like you said, after the first couple drives, it was a struggle for us for a lot of the game. That’s something that can’t happen against a really good team.”
(QB Tua Tagovailoa had mentioned specifically that communication on his part was something that needs to improve. We didn’t see a lot of pre-snap penalties in the first two games which were on the road. Is it as simple as it was louder? Or why was that?) – “No, I mean that’s what you want to hear from the quarterback, the starting quarterback of your franchise because you don’t want to look – you’re hoping not to have finger pointers, especially from the leader of your team. That being said, that’s all nice to hear and I appreciate him taking the bullet for a lot of people, but I think that one of the reasons that we’ll all look in the mirror and understand why we had success is because we didn’t have those things happen. I know we had kind of an injury at one point and it kind of messed me up. I was responsible for delay game for sure, but Tua’s teammates need to know the ins and outs of their responsibilities, and Tua can’t be in charge of getting everyone aligned. So there’s a lot of stuff that go on with that. It’s the National Football League. You play one of the best teams in the National Football League, you better not have that part of your game, otherwise you’ll learn the hard way, which is what we did today.”
(Anything you can put your finger on why the offense got slowed down after the first two drives?) – “Like I said, I think that a big part of it has to do with the Buffalo Bills having a really good defense. You don’t just go down the field and score at will in the National Football League over and over and over. You have two drives, that’s cool, but you have to – you’re going to punt, and they’re going to make plays too. What you can’t do is have self-inflicted wounds. Things that I think our whole locker room and our coaching staff expect to get done weren’t getting done. So that’s the entirety of everyone involved on the offense, starting with me for sure.”
(Earlier in the week, we asked Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio about shadowing Bills WR Stefon Diggs and he said, “We’re not at that point in our defense.” Was that ever a topic of discussion?) – “No, I think that’s an easy finger to point. I think there was a couple situations where I know Kader (Kohou) would like to have back. But at the same time, I think there’s a lot of people that weren’t executing a lot of times late in the play. People can get blamed for getting beat down in the field, but our expectation as a defense is to is to get home in those situations too. So it’s a collective thing that I think hindsight it seems like, ‘Yeah, well, we should.’ I mean, obviously when you get beat by 28 points, you could argue that the opposite of what you did across the board would be a better answer. We’ll find those answers internally, but I don’t think it’s as easy as making one person a scapegoat for sure. Our team, offense and defense, needs to improve, as well as the special teams, and that’s what we’ll be focusing on moving forward, for sure.”
(Did you have any issue with the pass interference call on CB Kader Kohou?) – “I mean, I’m not trying to get fined. So, I mean I did not like an explosive play, penalty or not. That that part I can speak on, but besides that, it’s inconsequential. You don’t put it in the officials’ hands, regardless of how I feel.”
(I was curious if you got an explanation from the refs on the upheld fourth down play from WR Braxton Berrios?) – “Yeah, it was kind of what I was worried about. I thought the play was too big of a play not to throw the red flag, but it was lack of view to overturn was basically the explanation. At first, I heard that they were going to adjust the spot to make it a half yard, and then that definitely wasn’t the case. So I think that it’s just something that if you want the yard, get it visibly is the way I look at it, as opposed to leaving it in the officials’ hands for sure.”
(Is RB De’Von Achane making a case for an even larger role after last week’s performance by following it up with what he did today?) – “Yeah, I’ll take a look at the tape before I hesitate to crown anybody. You’re looking at each individual play. I know he made some plays; the game is not too big for him. He’ll continue to have a role, for sure, for our offense moving forward. What does that look like in terms of ratios and touches? That that will be something that I would be remiss if I didn’t wait to see the tape before making judgments like that.”
(Did you expect a learning curve with learning a whole new defense under Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio? Where are you at with the defense right now?) – “I would be lying if I was pumped about anything from our team today. I think the National Football League is a very humbling game. If you’re not on your stuff and you’re playing a team that is, this will happen. My view is that there are natural curves of learning as you install any system. However, there is nothing to be justified with the point differential for our team. So to say that I’m happy with anything would be false. I think we have a capable team. You win and lose in this league by one score at the end of the game. I think it’s a disservice to our team to lose by four and that I made clear to the team.”
(After four games, where are you looking to improve?) – “We are 3-1 and we play the New York Football Giants next week. Right? So, that’s where we’re at. I think it would be a failure on anybody’s part on our football team to look at it more than that or less than that. We are 3-1. So what happens if you’re 4-0? You have to keep getting better, you have to keep progressing. The things that are failing your team aren’t going to go away, you have to fix them. So that’s what we’ll be of the mindset. It’s a division loss on the road and that will always hurt, especially against the team that you feel like going into it you’re capable of putting together a better performance than that. It’s all about how you respond to everything. Just like if we would have won the game, how would we respond to that? This is a young team that needs to learn fast to get out of this season what they want. This provides an outstanding opportunity, and my eyes will be open to watch every single person across the board, how they respond to it because this doesn’t define your season, either way. It’s all about how you handle things, how you handle the adversity and how you handle success in the National Football League.”
(Do you have an update on the status of T Terron Armstead) – “I’ll get more information. I know it wasn’t just a reaggravation of anything, but I’ll have more information tomorrow.”
(You used the word ‘humbling’. QB Tua Tagovailoa and WR Tyreek Hill used the same word. Any part of you worried about your team being overconfident out there on the sidelines?) – “No, because correlation or causation, you don’t know and don’t pretend to know it’s X, Y, or Z. But if they were, if anybody was, I mean, I think the lesson has been learned quite literally. But I’m not going to say that it was or just put it all on that, I think that’s the easy way out. I think you have to watch the tape and assess position by position, group by group and phase by phase to come up with something tangible that guys can get better from.”
QB Tua Tagovailoa
(Just take us through the game how you saw it. First two drives came out how you wanted and then what happened after that?) – “I’m very proud of our guys for going out there, continuing to fight against a really good team, a division rival. Ever since I came to the league, it’s always been a tough game. Then you come here and play at their stadium, it makes it even tougher with their fans. Their fans are great with how they get into the flow of the game. Off of the two drives that we had, I thought that we did really well with our communication in and out of the huddle, getting guys where they needed to be and lining up and executing. Then with the other drives, there were a lot of communication errors on my part. I’ve got to be better with that aspect of the game for our guys and not put the guys into those situations, and that’s really what the game turned out to be. It was really stopping ourselves on first down, guys not knowing where to go because of formational issues with what was communicated in the huddle and things like that. So it’s on my part to be better for those guys in the locker room.”
(You mentioned the communication not carrying over from the first two drives. Was it just as simple as like it’s way too loud?) – “It was tough to hear numbers Mike (McDaniel) had been telling me prior to the crowd noise, and the crowd noise was really loud, but that’s also a me thing, understanding the game plan, knowing the game plan, knowing what we want to get done. And then situational awareness with our plays that we want to run, so that’s on my part.”
(For you guys to take the next step, whatever the next step is, you have to beat that team. Does it feel like they’ve had your number for a while?) – “They’re a tough team. They’re a divisional opponent. You always want to do the best that you can to win as many divisional games as you can. But this is Week 4 – a lot of football to play. We’ll see them again.”
(Did you see anything specific from the way that they’ve played you schematically that could have led to some of the issues that you had?) – “Not necessarily. I think they just do a really good job playing the things that they play, and they play really well. They pressured on the early downs in the earlier drives of the game, and then they kind of got their flow of the game. Then they started to just play what they play – play coverage, read their run fits, read their run keys and things like that. I think they’ve done a great job on that side of the ball in mitigating big plays for us offensively.”
(Did they do anything differently after that second drive? Again, you guys had your way – both offenses did really there to start. But then coming out the third drive, I think it started to go downhill from that. Did they do anything differently?) – “They played the way they’ve been playing. Like I said, it was just communication issues, being down on the clock, not being able to allow guys to be in the position that we want them to be in because time doesn’t permit. So that’s my fault. I’ve got to be better, and I will be better for those guys.”
(It seemed like after T Terron Armstead left the game, it seemed like guys were coming in untouched or unblocked at the line of scrimmage. Was that communication as well?) – “Yes, and like I said, that’s on me not communicating to all of our guys. It has to do with everything. Motions, protection, it has to do with everything. I didn’t allow those guys to go out there and play football the way they want to play football. It was basically guys are thinking and guys were having to guess. That’s not how I want our guys to go out and play, and that’s something that I need to be better with and I’ll work on.”
(Two-part question here, not football related. What does it mean to you to be a Christian and a football player? How does your faith help you move on from games like this?) – “I think the best thing about being a believer of Jesus Christ, to me, is that the Good Lord up above doesn’t care whether you win a game, whether you lose a game. For me, it’s been a little tough having to play on Sundays, having to understand that I’m not able to go to church. Really a lot of it is having to watch church online after games and things like that. But allowing me this platform, to me, is the thing in the world to be able to profess my faith on something that I firmly believe in, something that’s been foundationally instilled in me at a young age. When I’m out there, I even pray before I go out to a series and whatnot. I’m always praying. I’m on the sideline (and) it looks like I’m talking to myself, I’m speaking in tongues. Some people think, ‘What? This guy knows how to speak in tongues?’ I grew up in a non-denominational Christian church my entire life, so yeah, it does a lot. So having to remember scripture always keeps me encouraged in continuing to press forward, especially in times like this.”
(I wanted to ask about OL Connor Williams being out and OL Liam Eichenberg being in there. I know that you guys have specific pre-snap operations with OL Connor Williams. How did that maybe change working with OL Liam Eichenberg?) – “I think Liam (Eichenberg) did a tremendous job. I am very, very proud (and) very happy for what he’s done and the task that was asked of him. To play center on the road in a loud environment against this d-line, against this defense, (I’m) very, very proud of him and how he conducted himself in getting guys in the right places to block our run game and also get guys in places to block our pass game. So I’m very proud of him.”
(Did any part of last week linger? Obviously, good or bad, you want to flush last week, but last week was not any other game.) – “I would say from my standpoint, I didn’t feel as if any of the guys in the locker room took it in a way of, ‘Oh yeah, we won by this much. That’s how it’s going to feel the next game, and then the next game it’s going to carry over.’ I didn’t feel like that was necessarily the deal, but we did understand, and we did know that this was going to be a tough opponent regardless. These guys weren’t going to care what we did last week. I don’t think any other team is going to care what team they have next did prior. Guys are going to come out and guys are going to play. This is the league, and this is how it works. It’s very good, because I would say it’s also very humbling for a lot of people to be able to have the highest high and then you lose in a manner like this, it’s very humbling. For some, it’s much needed.”
(I was curious, what was Head Coach Mike McDaniel’s message to you guys? Obviously not the way you guys expect to lose coming into the matchup, what was his message to you guys in the locker room?) – “I would say the message from Mike (McDaniel) was don’t blink. There’s a lot of football left, continue to look at the guy next to you, continue to trust him, continue to keep playing and remember what you play for. It’s tough when you lose and you lose like this, but we’re not going to blink. We’re going to continue to do what we do. We’re going to go back in. We’re going to work on the things that need to be worked fixed and need to be corrected. I can promise you one thing, we’ll definitely be better from this.”
