Head Coach Jack Del Rio
There's not much Oakland Raiders Head Coach Jack Del Rio loves more than playing complementary football, and having all three phases contribute, and Sunday afternoon, the Silver and Black did just that. At the Oakland –Alameda County Coliseum, against the Denver Broncos, the Raiders fended off their division rival, and tacked on their fifth win of the season. Following the team's 21-14 victory, Del Rio met with the media for his postgame press conference, and recapped the events of the game.
Here are the quick hits from his media session:
Del Rio touched on the team being in control of its own destiny.
"In a certain respect you always do by what you get done. Obviously, we need to get hot. We need to play good football. We showed glimpses of being a good football team tonight in all three areas. Certainly, when you add it all up, you look and say, 'there's still a lot that needs to be corrected and worked on.' We're not going to pretend…take every opportunity to enjoy. You have to. Winning is hard in this league. You need to enjoy the victories. We got No. 5 tonight. We need to get ready to turn our attention to next week to get No. 6."
He talked about what goes into having a potent and productive pass rush.
"I talk about it all the time, the keys to sacks are the combination of rush and coverage going hand in hand. If you're getting the rush you want, and the coverage is tight, then the quarterback doesn't have anywhere to go safely with the ball and then you're going to be able to get him on the ground. We got that done five good times, and we spread it around a little bit. Denico [Autry] got involved a little bit. Obviously, Bruce [Irvin] got a couple and Khalil [Mack], who is always going to show up. It was good to see a mix of guys."
Del Rio let out a sigh of relief after the team hauled in its first interception of the 2017 season.
"It was relief. I've never seen anything like it. Even later in the game we still had both hands on a ball that ended up not only not being intercepted, but caught by the other team. I've never seen it. I've never seen it, certainly not as many times as we've seen it this year. Hopefully we're getting all of that out of our system. We're going to start catching the ball a little more consistently."
He broke down what into the decision to move defensive end Khalil Mack to different positions along the defensive front.
"Well just move him around some. Not to get into game plan things, but I think he was moving around a little bit with the idea that they wouldn't be able to lock in on exactly where he'd be. Obviously, they like to give him extra attention."
Del Rio shared his thoughts on the effort shown by running back Marshawn Lynch recently.
"I think I made the statement earlier in the week, and I'll would just reiterate it that Marshawn since coming back from that time with that one game suspension, I feel like he's come back with even more purpose, resolve, whatever t might be. He's come back operating in a way that I think is good for us. Very decisive and very purposeful about his running and his approach."
