After the Oakland Raiders held their usual "Fast Friday," practice at the team's Alameda, Calif., facility, Head Coach Jack Del Rio held his typical post-practice press conference.
Here are the highlights from his media session.
Head Coach Del Rio shared his thoughts about Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley.
"I think he's a good coordinator, whether you want to categorize it as aggressive or not, I think when you have a quarterback like Ben [Roethlisberger], with the touch, and the arm strength and you have weapons like they have, they're going to throw it down the field."
Ben Roethlisberger's creativity outside the pocket presents a challenge to the Raiders defense.
"What happens is the play clock typically runs, the play is over after a certain amount of time. Well, with Ben, it just gets extended, so a lot of times when that play breaks down and he's shrugging people off, he's looking downfield. He's got receivers with speed, all of a sudden, they're breaking wide open, and you just don't want to see those. That has to be an emphasis point."
His creativity means the Raiders defense must be disciplined.
"It requires discipline in the secondary. It requires relentless pursuit out of rush. The thing about rushing him is that when you get there, you have to tackle him with grown-man strength, because he won't go down with a little finger."
Head Coach Del Rio knows the talent Antonio Brown possesses.
"He's as good as anybody out there. I think for us, tackling is always number one. Leveraging and tackling; you can't play good defense without it. That is a must for us. We work on it every week and it'll be very important in this game as well."
