Mike McDaniel – November 29, 2024
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Friday, November 29, 2024
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(Do you have any sense yet about how severe CB Kader Kohou’s back injury is and are you hopeful for having CB Kendall Fuller back for the Jets game?) – “Hopeful for both. More information on Kader (Kohou), it didn’t seem to be severe but we’ve got to get more information.”
(As you reviewed the tape of last night’s game, in particular I wanted to ask you about the three plays from the 1-yard line. What did you see on tape and what might you do differently as a playcaller?) – “I would do four plays, like I said I thought there was an opportunity for us to score from the 9(-yard line), great effort but a minor execution fault on the perimeter got us to the 1(-yard line). The next play, we had a critical assignment mistake that got us kind of stuffed at the 1(-yard line), then we had a bootleg which we just needed an extra tick to layer the ball out there a little bit further. That was a huge opportunity to score and defense did a good job on the edge to kind of layer the ball and then I thought the defender got to Jonnu (Smith), it was a bang-bang. You hope for a call there, but it’s 50-50 when those happen, it’s just one of those football things. The fourth down call was what I was eluding to last night, I was disappointed in just because this is the way I kind of look at fourth down; sometimes going for it on fourth down you’re successful, sometimes you’re not. I can’t really hang my hat on the result, but what’s important to me is in those situations that I give the players an opportunity to make a play in that moment of truth. In that situation, the defensive presentation was a little difficult for the play. I put Alec Ingold in a really tough spot who got caught up in foot traffic, and with the pocket kind of compressed at the point of attack, there wasn’t really a play to be made. So those are the ones that for me I don’t view as acceptable, I expect better in those situations. I think just going through that, that’s kind of the microcosm for the game where everybody played a part in something and executing football in a way that we hadn’t in the past month offensively and as a result, we came up short.”
(I wanted to get your reaction to a comment that came out of the locker room last night postgame. LB Jordyn Brooks, “We were soft.” What’s your reaction?) – “I think specifically what Jordyn (Brooks) was talking about, I think that has to do with the tackling or the lack there of. So much of the production over 100-some odd yards for them offensively was as a result of tackling, and I think that was a collective issue. It’s two-fold, really. In my mind, it’s hard for me to assess 100% with conviction opinion one way or the other, but I think two things were at play; I saw a consistent failure of tacklers to bring their feet through the tackle, just picture diving and leaving your feet to try to wrap up, as opposed to bringing your feet through the tackle which is our No. 1 fundamental emphasis when we do that. Whether that was because of the cold or the short week, either way both things are consistent with the opponent; the opponent has a short week and the opponent is playing in that weather. There are some things that kind of we took a step back in the football that had gotten us out of 2-6. I’m not sure – whatever factors at play, we need to attack this game singularly and focus on the stuff that we didn’t do that contributed to the result that we had been doing. We got out of, I think the last five guys – even before the three-game win streak, there were three games that we lost but they were all one score, so you saw us playing better football. Then we travel to Green Bay, and unlike the Monday night experience, we didn’t bring some of the nuts and bolts of how we play football and paid for it severely. A 13-point game, three-and-out after the defense was defending a short field based upon a kick return that we gave up too much yardage on special teams, then we had a special teams turnover, too many mistakes there which wasn’t acceptable, so you give up seven points there and then you’re denied on the goal line – that’s 14 points there in a 13-point game. It’s frustrating but it’s also not that complicated from my vantage point. I think it will be very clear when talking to the team, I think they’ll agree. In the National Football League, you learn hard lessons a lot, and we’ll have to hear about all the things that come with this loss and I’d prefer that. I want things earned, not given, and we have some work to do to earn what our goals are.”
(I’m wondering if you guys talk playoffs at this point. Is that still the big picture goal or is strictly week-to-week, game-to-game right now?) – “I think it’s an understated thing that I bring up from time to time just because I try to address things that I know that come up in conversations. I absolutely obsess about – there’s only one thing you can do about your football season, about your football team, about your football play, and that’s through one opponent and when you do that, case in point, we have the prototype right in front of us. When we were 2-6, we weren’t talking about getting to 5-6, we were talking about one opponent. And then when you talk about that one opponent, you talk about how you’re going to improve your football play or how you’re going to execute your football play on that very day, and then you put that to bed and learn from it and go to the next. So the focus is very much on the New York Jets. We have seven losses and that’s the amount of losses we had last year in the playoffs, and we had eight losses, I think, the year before. So a lot of things happened the last five weeks based upon my experience in the NFL, so you just worry about the one opponent with the life of our season absolutely being above water.”
(You guys had been so good about the penalties and reducing the penalties, and they cropped up last night. What happened last night in that respect?) – “That’s another microcosm of the issue. We can’t expect to have the results of the previous games and take a gigantic step back. To the players’ credit, some of those things were absolutely gigantic reasons for losses earlier in the season. And so what happens there? Well, you put a point of emphasis on it, you really focus on it and to their credit, we played really clean football which is how you win in this league. One of the biggest things that good teams do when they’re playing good teams is they play clean football and allow the opponents to make mistakes – that’s what the Packers did to us last night. So in moments like that, you can’t regress on something that has been monumental in your development over the course of the season. If the collective investment is to the standard, it should be an easier lesson to learn in terms of we have the prototype in front of us as how to clean that up. Part of it I think is taking a hard look on short weeks how we can get that done, because I think our team does a great job preparing for opponents, and then why our some of our fundamental principles and foundational principles of our football team regressing in short weeks? That’s something that’s my job to figure out and will be the rest of the coaches to apply it and the players to execute it. So I have some substantial things to work on but things that we are capable of based upon my observation and direct experience this season with this football team.”
(T Kendall Lamm left the game, came back, left again. Do you have any sort of idea of whether this is anything that might be concerning in terms of his availability for the Jets game or beyond?) – “No, I think he was battling. He’s a warrior for us. He had some back stuff and had an elbow thing, but he was showing his grit and his toughness last night. I’ll get more information probably later this afternoon, but nothing is indicating that it’s super severe, but as far as what that means for this week and this game, I’ll have to find some more stuff out.”
(A question about WR Malik Washington. Beyond the muffed punt, which you addressed after the game yesterday, I think it’s twice now in the past two or three games where he’s fielded a punt at the 5- or the 6-yard line and I’m wondering if you guys have some sort of set rule for him: “Do not field a punt inside the 10, at the 5-yard line,” or do you leave it strictly up to his judgement?) – “You have parameters, and the one last week, I think it was last week, but that was him really doing something calculated, it was dangerous, but it was also very smart in terms of how fast the ball was moving backwards and it was probably going to be pinned. He saved us some yardage, risky but heads up play. This one, I think it’s a tough lesson that if I know Malik Washington like I think – yeah, I’m pretty certain that I know – the good news is he learns lessons as well, fast. It’s a part of the reason he’s been able to contribute so much to our team as a rookie is it’s very important to him. It was terrible for a guy who takes the job of contributing to a veteran team as a rookie so serious. It was gut wrenching to see him learn this lesson of you’re in the Midwest, the winds are swirling, the balls in the air and it changes flight, and sometimes the best play, it’s like a quarterback learning to take a sack instead of throwing a pick. I know that’s going to be difficult for him but it’s one of those that you have to understand. And we talked about it during the week, with teams like this, games generally come down to turnovers and extra possessions, which it did and he had to learn a tough lesson the hard way. I know he’ll bounce back.”
(Obviously, injuries are a part of the game but how frustrating is it to lose two corners when you’re already down and there’s no CB Kendall Fuller as well?) – “I try to lead by example and one of the things that I think is paramount, and it’s probably to my fault, is that I refuse to allow myself, nor the team to make excuses. In the game, I really attach zero emotion to it because I think it’s important to focus on what you can control. In this game, there can be a snowball effect and it’s unfortunate, especially when some young guys are really cutting their teeth with some good experience and continuing to progress their game. I would say it’s probably more frustrating; we’ve had position fallout at tackle in 2022 and outside linebacker in 2023, but it gets even more frustrating when you have some young players that are growing in their game and you really want to see them continue to climb mountains. So that’s the tough part for the team and the individuals.”
