Head Coach Jack Del Rio
Man, that was a tough loss.
The Oakland Raiders battled; from start to finish the team left it all on the field, but fell in the final minute of regulation. Head Coach Jack Del Rio talked all week about "letting it rip," and for a majority of the night the team did just that. Unfortunately, quarterback Derek Carr's dive for the pylon to win the game resulted in a fumble out of the end zone, which by rule is a touchback. Following the game, Del Rio met with the media to discuss the team's grit Sunday night, and what occurred in the final moments of action.
Here are the quick hits from his press conference:
Del Rio recapped the game, and expressed that he was proud of the team.
"Well, heck of a game. I thought it was a gritty effort back and forth. Really, really believed that we were going to pull it out and I'd be sitting up here with a big smile. But I'm proud of the guys, the way they fought. A group of men that are going to leave it on the field, that's what it looks like. The difference is so little between winning and losing. That's just the nature of this game."
He broke down what he saw from Carr all night, including the final play of the Raiders' drive.
"I thought he did a great job with his feet tonight. We asked him for that. He gave it up at the end. Yeah, you can go back and say, 'Hey don't reach that thing across there.' We would've all been really happy if he reached it across there and held onto the thing while he did. He moved with his feet there. Made a great play or potentially a great play, that's just an inch away from a great play and ends up unfortunately going the other way for them. I think going forward, the way we did and the way he did, I thought he played… It reminded me of what we saw a lot of last year."
Del Rio touched on the fourth down ruling that involved an index card.
"I don't want to get fined, OK? I'm not happy with the way things were done. A lot of different situations throughout the night. They did the best they could. I had a different view point. I saw air. It was pretty obvious. But again, they do the best they can with a tough job."
He praised the defense for its effort Sunday.
"Yeah, it was the first drive, maybe the first two drives, they hit a couple. We just settled down. We had a good feel for what we had to do to defend them. I thought we were ready. I thought we did a good job of it. We got off on third down. I think they were 2-for-10 or something like that. So, we did a good job there. We got some turnovers. We had a chance for a couple more. I thought it was pretty solid."
Del Rio gave credit to the Dallas Cowboys for their fake punt.
"Yeah, they got us on that. They have a good special teams unit. They won the battle tonight. We had too many penalties on special teams. They had that big conversation there. That was a big play in the game for sure. That allowed them to go down and get a touchdown there. I mean ultimately that probably is the difference in the game. We were asserting ourselves pretty well to start the second half."
