Raiders coach Josh McDaniels fielded some Patriots questions this morning before the second joint practice and there were some obvious hot topics that will interest Patriots fans:
On the Patriots filling his roles with Matt Patricia and Joe Judge.
I mean, I really don't know exactly what everybody's doing over there. I just know that ... They've got a lot of really good coaches. And I was in a position once where, you know, I was on the defensive side of the ball for a couple of years and then I moved over and coached quarterbacks for one year. Then all of a sudden, you know, the next thing I'm doing is being ready to, you know, call the offense after being on the offensive side for one year. And I remember nobody believed that that was really the case. Look, I think at the end of the day, Bill has a plan for whatever he wants to do and that plan sometimes. He has foresight that some of the rest of us don't have, I didn't have it when he pushed me ahead and help me do that. So you know, I got a lot of friends over there. I got a lot of people over there that have a tremendous amount of respect for. Coaching is coaching, you know, you learn something new every day. I don't have every answer on offense. I don't have every answer on defense or in the special teams area. That's why you have a staff and so you work together and try to produce the best result you can and from what I saw yesterday, I mean, that was just competitive a practice as we could have asked for it in every phase, you know. We lost plays in every phase, you know, we were competitive in other plays. That's just what you're gonna see. I think that those guys are going through their process. I'm here how we're going through our process. And we don't have all that figured out, you know, right now, in terms of going through a change of a new staff. So, again, every team that goes through this, it's not unique to us or them. We'll all figure it out somehow.
We've heard a lot of the Patriots players talk about how they've changed some terminology, simplified things to play quicker since you left. I'm just curious, are you installing your offense with the raiders and how has it gone? Did you feel the need with all new guys new to the system? Did you have to streamline some things? Yeah,
I'm probably a unicorn in this regard. Because I've been in one system my whole life. And most of the coaches which is why we have you know, a staff full of guys that is not that way so that we don't all think exactly the same thing at the same time. But from the time I got there in 2001 to 08 it was the same for me. Then I went to Denver and was the same and then coach Spagnuolo allowed me to use our system in 2011 in St. Louis. And then I came back to New England, it was the same for me again, and then I came here and we're kind of using that as our foundation. Again, everything evolves and changes. I think we're running things we've never run before because they came up in the spring or we thought about them with our personnel and we figured like this might be a good direction to head in. But the foundation part of it relative to the communication and the terminology is definitely the same for me. Again, it's new for everybody else that hasn't heard it before. So it's a process, there's definitely a process involved there. Guys are working really hard at trying to get that and we're gonna we've said this before, we're gonna have to start where we are. Wherever we are at the beginning of the season, that's the only place we can start at you know, we can't start at third base. So if we're on first we're gonna start on first base. And we're gonna try to do that as well as we can. But yes, it's the terminology that I'm familiar with. And again, we've got additions from all over the place, relative to Edgar and KP and guys on the staff that have good ideas, so but the foundation is the same.
When you looked at the film of yesterday's practice, he saw it live in person, how much of their offense looked new to you versus obviously the system you had?
You know, I saw plenty of things that I'm familiar with. Like I said, I don't know everything that they're doing. I mean, they probably saw as many things from us that they never seen as we did them, you know, I mean, so I think you fit it to your personnel and like I said, each year is an evolution. I mean, I've honestly I've never wanted to stay the same from one year to the next because I've always been fearful of what that result would produce. You stay the same in this league, and there's great coaches and players on the other side, and they just run you down and then you're trying to run the same things you ran last year and you wonder why they're not working as well. I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of coaches over the years and that's really the same comment we all make is what worked one year everyone studied, and then it didn't work the next year. I'm sure they're evolving. We're evolving here. There's plenty of things I saw yesterday that I knew, you know. I thought it was funny, we didn't have noise yesterday. So we're calling out some things in the two minute offense and their whole sidelines yelling what it is, you know, and I thought that was funny, but we didn't have much success with it but anyway. Yeah, it's just I think there's definitely like I said, elements on both sides. You're probably seeing that going. I know what that is, you know, and then they're seeing something new and go that's a wrinkle here there. So we all evolve. That's the reality and I'm not in their meetings. I don't really know exactly how that's all you know, being produced and all that but some things that you saw that were clearly from what we've done and some new stuff.
Mac Jones is somebody that you worked closely with last year, you were heavily invested in. Was that tough to leave him at that point after a year and also what have you seen out of Mac?
Love that kid. I really do. Spent a lot of time with him obviously last year. Great human being, got a bright future. Really competitive guy that wants to do it right ... everything, wants to do everything right, you know, and so, yeah, those are always things that are difficult, you know, when you leave and you go somewhere else, and there's gonna be people that you miss maybe more than others, but you're gonna miss them all. Saw him yesterday, you know, battling you know, and that's basically what happens at this time of the year and thought he made some really good plays and, you know, there's, you know, some other situations where we're trying to make it as hard as we can on him and they obviously got the better of us there at the end. Finishing practice was a huge point of emphasis for us, and we obviously didn't finish it as well as they did so on either side of the ball. But I think the world of the kid, I really do