McNuggets: Broncos 23 – Raiders 3: The Day After

Knowshon Moreno #27 of the Denver Broncos runs against the Oakland Raiders on September 27, 2009 during an NFL game at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California. (Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

Quotes from Josh McDaniels‘ Monday presser after the Denver Broncos‘ 23-3 victory over the Oakland Raiders.

HEAD COACH JOSH McDANIELS

Opening statement

“After looking at the film, we had a lot of people play well and execute the way that we hoped to. We played very physical and really were competitive in every phase and every situation. I felt like we won the line of scrimmage for the better part of the day on both sides and really played fast and physical in the kicking game, which is huge for us. We do not want to give up a lot of plays on special teams. That is kind of how (the Raiders) had won a lot of the games that they won in 2008. Our guys did a really nice job of responding to the challenge.”

On if his perceptions of the Broncos change after starting 3-0

“No, they don’t. What we have, how we practiced, what we have assembled here and the way that we go about our business has never changed, and we feel good about that. We have always had confidence regardless of everybody else’s opinion. I said yesterday, it doesn’t really matter what anybody else thinks. All that matters is what we think. We still have a long way to go, a lot of work to do and a lot of improvements left to make to be where we want to be and try to get to the best level that we can play at. We know where we are at. We are glad that we are 3-0 but (there is) a lot of work to do still.”

On if the defense is playing above his expectations

“I don’t think you ever anticipate only giving up one touchdown in 180 minutes of football, but we knew we thought we had a decent chance to be a good defense—physical up front and a good secondary. We tackled fairly well here in the first three weeks of the season. As a coach, you do not put expectations or projections or predictions on your team like that. You just try to improve every week and go out and play. What we knew what our team would do was prepare well—we have a lot of great leadership on both sides of the ball—have good weeks of practice and go out there and play hard. That is what we have done. If you execute a good plan with good players, usually you have a good chance to win.”

On if the Broncos are improving every week

“I hope we are improving every week, and I think they are. I think there are areas where—we can always do better in every area, but we have shown improvement. We have had individual players improve. We have had teams—offensively, defensively, different units in the kicking game—get better. I think that is just a combination of the attitude that they come into each week with, the approach that they are taking. The coaching staff is doing a great job of getting them ready and prepared for each opponent that we have played. Each opponent has been different and they have really accepted the information that we have tried to give to them to get ready each week and then go out there. Ultimately, it comes down to what they do on Sundays. It is a tribute to what they have been able to do and (there is) still a lot of work left.”

On what it takes to have a good tackling defense

“A part of good tackling is angles. We do a lot of angle-tackle drills in practice. Most of the time, we do not go all the way to the ground now. We did in training camp. When you are taking a proper angle, that is kind of half of the battle to me. When you get there, as long as you don’t let the guy go back to open space where you don’t really have any help, then it comes down to you—put your face in there and wrap him up and then hold on until one of your teammates comes or bring him to the ground yourself. I think our guys understand leverage and angles and trying to force the runner or whoever has the ball to his nearest help, whether it be the quarterback in the pocket, receivers or running backs out of the backfield. I thought we did a nice job on (Raiders QB JaMarcus) Russell. He is a big guy to tackle and get to the ground, and they did a nice job with him when they had a chance. I think it is just playing smart, getting the guy to the next closest thing that can get him to the ground whether it be the sideline or the next defender and then just wrapping up.”

On if tackling ability weighed into the free agent signings on defense this offseason

“Yes, all of the secondary players. We knew (S) Renaldo Hill is a good tackler. (S Brian) Dawkins is a good tackler. (CB) Alphonso Smith was a very good tackler at Wake Forest. We always want to make sure that we are getting good tacklers. It is the same thing with free agency. If they are poor tacklers, then you end up with a lot of yards when you get into the second level of the defense. You can eliminate a lot of big plays if you have got good tacklers there and in the linebacking corps and in the secondary.”

On how to keep the Broncos humble after starting the season 3-0

“Just show them the film. Show them the film. We have got a 50-play cut-up we are going to watch during the squad meeting, and it is not all bows and ribbons. They see it. They saw it every week that we have played so far that, ‘Boy! If we had only done these five or six things better, it could have been an even better performance, and we could have won by a bigger margin.’ When players see that, you don’t have to convince them that they need to improve. They know that they have got to get better. The biggest thing that you can do is take the things that we didn’t do well in the film and go out there on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and go out there and actually emphasize it and put a period in practice where we have to do this better. Yesterday, our field-goal protection was not very good. We are going to work on field-goal protection on Wednesday Thursday and Friday this week. They will learn how important that is and they are going to see how important it is when they see it.”

On QB Kyle Orton

“We don’t ever talk about our quarterbacks as game managers, but you want a quarterback to be efficient. You want him to be able to run the operation at the line of scrimmage and in the huddle very well. He got us in and out of a bunch of plays at the line of scrimmage in the running game. Nobody talks about the quarterback when you run for 215 yards, but when he is getting you out of a play that is going to go nowhere and you gain 26 on the other play, he plays a part in good running. Doing that is a big part of what we ask our quarterbacks to do, not turning the ball over, taking care of the ball and being effective when he has got people open and being accurate. Kyle certainly could have done better than he did yesterday but (he) played well. We are going to work hard to fix a few things that he didn’t do well.”

On the difference between being a game manager and managing a game

“We do not go into the week going, ‘Hey, we are just going to make sure we take care of the little things and that is it.’ Look, we would like to have explosive plays and do that every week. Against Cleveland, we had a few of those. Some weeks they are presented to you and some weeks they are not. I am just saying that we do not go into each week going, ‘We are only going to throw for 140 this week. Just make sure you don’t do anything negative.’ We are going to try to attack a defense in every way, shape or form we can. Once the game declares itself, once you have a 17-point lead in the third quarter, you are not going to do too many things that put the game in jeopardy if you feel comfortable with where you are at. That is what happened yesterday.”

On what constitutes an explosive play

“(When) we get runs over 15 yards and passes over 20 or 25 yards. To me, that changes field position dramatically. We have had quite a few of those here in the last few weeks, and they are all good plays. They take a lot of people to execute them well. We don’t get an explosive play with just the back making a good play. You need everybody.”

On if the Broncos’ conditioning will help the team through a physical stretch in the schedule

“I don’t know. The only team I know of is Dallas. I haven’t evaluated the next five teams on our schedule in terms of how physical they play. We play a good football team every week in our mind. I think our football team has developed a physical mentality. They play hard for 60 minutes, they are into it on the sidelines and I think that our preparation, their work on the field and what they did in training camp to get ready for the season all comes back to playing that way. I know we are going to play a physical football team next Sunday, and we are going to need to play that way, too.”

On what Orton needs to improve on

“A quarterback has 10 or 12 things to do once he claps his hands to break the huddle, so there is a lot of responsibility on his plate from the cadence to the identification of the protection to which run play should we go to, to reading the blitz and figuring out if he has to get rid of it to reading the coverage to determine where he is going to throw it, then to reading our receivers to determine if they are open. There are a lot of things that he has got to do, and he does a lot of them well. I have never been around a quarterback that has played a game where I went, ‘Boy! That was a perfect game.’ There is just too much on their plate to come off the field and say, ‘Boy! I couldn’t make any corrections to what you did.’ There is a little thing here or there with his footwork in the pocket. We could be a little bit more accurate if our feet were better. Things like that. You have really got to correct all of the little things, and then ultimately, you end up with a good product.”

On teaching the defense

“That is what coaching is to me—teaching. If you are not a good communicator or a good teacher, it is hard to be a real affective coach at this level. There is too much information that you need to pass on along to your players, and we have so many different types of learners in our locker room. Some guys learn quickly from the mouth. Some guys need it on the board. Some guys need it on the board, on film, from the mouth, walkthrough and practice it twice, and then they have got it. That is just the way this game is. Every player is different, and I think that is part of being a good coach is figuring out, ‘How do I have to teach my players because they are not all the same guy?’ That is a really critical component to being a good staff. If you have got a lot of good teachers and good communicators, then you are going to have players out there on the field that are well prepared. If you have good players who are well prepared, that is usually a good formula.”