Head Coach Dennis Allen postgame.
Head Coach Dennis Allen
On the game: "Well, we have to eliminate the self-inflicted wounds. That's the thing that has hurt us in the preseason and obviously hurt us tonight and we've got to find a way to get those things eliminated because really, when you look at it, we did some good things in the game. Defensively, I thought we played really pretty well. There's really a couple of plays, we gave up a big pass to [Robert] Meachum on a third down situation and then we gave up a long drive there in the second quarter where they kind of got our offense a little out of rhythm because they were able to possess the ball so long. I thought there were some positive things we could gather from that. I thought Carson [Parson] played well today. Again, offensively I thought we were able to move the ball, we just didn't have a lot of points to show for it."
On watching the special teams: "It was hard. It was hard because you didn't know what you were going to get from one play to the next. We're going to have to have a plan for that going forward and we have to make sure we don't let that happen again."
On fixing the long snapping issues if Jon Condo can't go: "We'll look at that tomorrow and we'll find out what options we have available to us. We're going to make sure we have somebody that can handle those duties."
On lack of pressure on Philip Rivers: "I think a couple things – I think their offensive line did a nice job of protecting tonight and Philip did a nice job of retreating some in the pocket and buying himself some time and being able to throw the ball. He did that a couple of times when we had a chance to maybe get to him. I thought Philip played well. He's a good quarterback. We have a lot of respect for him. We have a lot of respect for the Chargers and the team that they are. They executed. They were better than us tonight."
QB Carson Palmer
On the game: "We knew it wasn't going to be easy. But I think that when we look at the film we're going to realize that we put ourselves in some difficult spots with the turnover and some negative plays and made it a lot more difficult than it needed to be. When it comes down to it, we didn't score enough points on offense. Fourteen points is not enough against that offense. We need to continue to figure out ways to get better and fix the silly and simple mistakes that we can."
On Raider Nation at the game: "I think that's one of the worst parts about this. Our fans showed up for us and we didn't show up for them. We wanted to come in and get a big division win, Monday Night Football, and start out undefeated at home. Those goals aren't there right now, but we have a lot of goals that we can still achieve. Coach [Dennis Allen] said it best: 'It's one of 16.' This is not a sprint, this is a marathon and we're going to stick together and continue to work. We've got a short week. We can get back on track with a win in Miami."
On focusing on Miami: "It's going to be great. I can't wait just to get on from this one. It's a good thing it's a short week. It's a nice plan that it's a late Monday. Tuesday we've got to start watching film and getting ready. We'll have a little bit of time to look at what we did in this game but we need to move on. That's a good thing right now that when you lose a game that you really wanted to win, it's a division game, and it's a rivalry and all of those things. So we need to move on and get ready for Miami. This team will be excited and this team will be ready to go."
RB Darren McFadden
On the game: "They went out there and I feel like they outplayed us; they did a great job. We made a lot of mistakes that were shooting us in the foot and stopped us from moving the ball like we needed to. We just have to come back Wednesday and be ready to do some more work."
On whether he expected a large workload: "We just go with the offense; however the offense is called, that's how we roll. You never know what to expect when you're going into a football game, whether you're going to get it [the ball] this many times or however, you just roll with the flow of the game."
WR Rod Streater
On his connection Carson Palmer: "I'm pretty familiar with Carson. In the off-season, we're definitely out there training together. Wherever he's throwing, I definitely try to show up to where he's at because I know Carson is going to be there, Leinart is going to be there, Matt Cassel is going to be there. We're all southern California guys and we all try to get together and workout during the off-season, and that's what it's all about. We all want to be great at what we do. We want to be the best, and it's all about putting in that time and that effort to get where you want to be."
DT Richard Seymour
On playing the whole game: "That's my job; you know do whatever you're asked to do and obviously collectively we didn't do a good enough job today. That's disappointing. I thought we had a good off-season and good training camp and were heading in the right direction but obviously it didn't turn out the way we would like today. But I just feel excited about what we can do. Just because you don't start off like you like, you know it's one of those things like the quote, 'tough times don't last, tough people do,' and I think we have got a lot of tough guys in this locker room and we took this one on the chair. We will give them a lot of credit. They made the plays they needed to. We didn't get off to field on the 3rd down. You know, had some penalties and a few things I wish we could take back, but it's all part of the game and we learn from it and get better from there."
FB Marcel Reece
On whether he is frustrated about the loss: "How much work you put in throughout the months for this Monday night opener, against our rival, and not put points on the board that we need to, it's tough. We were out there, we were executing, and it just came down to not putting points up that we needed to. Our defense played tremendous football. My hat goes off to them; I commend them. It's frustrating. Things happen on the football field. Those guys over there played well, we just feel like we have to go out there and make plays. We had too many chances to make plays that we didn't make. We can't let it happen again."
Travis Goethel
On why he was chosen to long snap: "Coach asked if anyone knew how to long snap, and I was the only one at camp that stood up so that's kind of how I got put in there."
On how much notice he had before he snapped: "That notice right there when he went down and I got put in. Trust me, I wish it never happened."
On what P Shane Lechler said after his missed snaps: "He just told me to keep my head up and not to worry about it. But, of course I'm going to worry about it when I do a bad snap."
