Nobody wants to lose in their head coaching debut. But when it occurs in the preseason, as it did for the Las Vegas Raiders' Klint Kubiak, it is a much easier pill to swallow. These games aren't as much about the final score as they are about learning, and the Silver and Black have a lot to take away.
Although Kubiak is now in charge of everything, he butters his bread on the offensive side of the ball, and they looked a lot better than the defense did, at least in the first two groups. But Kubiak, as the head man, also has to answer for the defense now. It's all pretty new to the 39-year-old leader.
But he's approaching things the right way, at least he seems to be when he speaks to the media, as he did both after the game and on Friday morning. Let's dive into everything that Kubiak said following the 27-14 loss to the Arizona Cardinals in preseason Week 1.
- Raiders' Injuries
- On Fernando Mendoza
- On Roster Battles
- Roster Evaluation
- On Specific Players
- General Takeaways and Observations
Raiders' Injuries
"B-Jack [Brennan Jackson] had a foot [injury], so we'll evaluate him tomorrow. And then, obviously Maxx [Crosby] did not play, that was my decision."
"For DT [Dont'e Thornton Jr.], yes we do expect to get him back [this week at practice]. He's been banged up a little bit, but we expect him to get back on the field and see some action in the preseason at some point here. And D-Cam [Decamerion Richardson] had a baby, so he was excused."
On Fernando Mendoza
"Well, I thought he led a good scoring drive as far as getting in and out of the huddle and commanding the group and getting the play calls down. I saw the same guy that we've seen in practice. I see an ascending player. We've just got to keep getting better."
"We want to get him plenty of reps in the preseason. That was important for us to see him get lots of turns. And as these games go on, we're going to evaluate game-to-game, but he's a young man that needs experience and needs reps and we're going to get them to him."
"Yeah, there'll be some good some good lessons that we look forward to attacking with the tape with him. He knows you can't take a sack and those are things he's going to grow from."
On Mendoza stating that he watched film immediately after the game:
"That doesn't surprise me that he would go watch the tape. I think probably a lot of our guys did. A lot of the coaches, the way technology is these days, you don't have to come back to the facility, you can keep your iPad with you and go watch the reps. But as far as I know, our quarterbacks they're expected to handle a lot of information and to process it all. So, I think you push them mentally and see how much their bucket can hold. And him and Aidan [O'Connell] and Jacob [Clark] and Kirk [Cousins], those guys, those guys can carry a lot of information."
On Mendoza being his own biggest critic:
"The best quarterbacks I've been around are the ones that are hard on themselves. They put the finger on them before they put it on their teammates. I think he played good football last night. He's going to continue to get better."
After watching Mendoza's film:
"Yeah, I think the thing that just stood out for me, again, is that we put a lot on his plate and all the quarterbacks played getting ready for this preseason game, and he went out and executed the way that he does in practice. Some guys, they get to the game and things change on them, and it moves fast, and they freak out. And he was the opposite. He was very calm. He was getting the calls in. He was seeing coverage well. I liked the way that he moved in the pocket, got outside, and extended some plays. So, I think that Fernando [Mendoza] has had a really good week of practice, and the things that he did in the game are things I've seen him do in practice. So, he's consistent. The consistency from the position is important, and I didn't see any game day surprises just because the moment was a little bit bigger. He was the same guy."
On Roster Battles
QB:
"Yeah, well Kirk [Cousins] has been getting the reps with the ones. I think he's had a solid training camp and it's his job to lose."
"We're going to put a plan together this week, and that's something that we're talking about as a coaching staff right now. But really, whether it's Aidan O'Connell, Kirk [Cousins], or Fernando [Mendoza], I would say all three of those guys deserve first team reps. But we've got to go put a plan together on how we're going to split them up."
RG:
"Yeah, I've been really pleased with how both of those guys are playing. They're making each other better. They're making decisions hard on us. But it also means we're continuing to build solid depth. So, JPJ [Jackson Powers-Johnson], and Caleb [Rogers], they're both playing winning football, and they're both improving. And we're going to continue to coach them to improve them."
Roster Evaluation
On the offensive line:
"Yeah, I think it'll take time to peek at it tomorrow. Definitely didn't get to run as much tonight. We had to throw a bunch in that second half, but I'd like to peek at it first. But something that we're always trying to get better at is our run blocking, play action, and making things look the same. But we've got to be able to be in the game at the end, so we can keep doing that the whole game."
On the secondary:
"I just think we’ve got a lot of growth to do as a team. As a team, we've got a lot of growth to do, so starts tomorrow."
"Very important. We wanted to put them in a lot of man coverage situations. We have some decisions to make, so it's important that we see these guys cover."
On Specific Players
Mike Washington Jr.:
"Pleased with what Mike [Washington Jr.]; Mike did some good things just like he practiced. I think he was the same player that we've seen in practice. Had a big run, just got to keep giving him more outs as preseason goes."
Jack Bech:
"He stepped up, had an excellent game. He really has had an impressive camp as far as just being a guy that's continually straining and getting better and hasn't had all the ops in practice and then he came out tonight and was ready to roll. So, I was happy but not surprised with what he did tonight."
"Yeah, he's a guy that has been highlighted before in our team meetings as a guy that plays really well without the football, and just so happens that when the ball finds him, he goes and makes plays. I don't think that's an accident. I think that's the kind of guy that he is, the kind of teammate that he is. Was really proud of the contested plays and critical situation plays that he made last night. So, that doesn't surprise me about Jack [Bech]. That's what his character is."
UDFAs Cian Slone, EJ. Williams and Chase Roberts:
"Yeah, for sure. Cian [Slone] on defense has done some good stuff. We got the wide receiver position – we've got a few guys that have showed up between Chase [Roberts] and our and our young man from Indiana [E.J. Williams Jr.], they got some good snaps yesterday. Overall, those are the kind of guys that come to mind. Someone I'm missing that you're thinking of is on the tip of my tongue, but I think there's potential for those guys at the bottom of the roster to show what they can do on special teams and try to help us. So, that'll be a good thing to watch too in the last two games."
Jermod McCoy:
"It's great for Jermod [McCoy] to go out and get that experience. His first football in a year. I still can't say enough great things about what he's done to get himself physically to this point, I'm really proud of him. And last night he got back to football and got a few thrown on him, but he's going to be better for it. So, we'll just keep improving."
Trey Zuhn III:
"We have moved him around quite a bit, and that's what we drafted him to do. And that's a position that we want to see him get live reps in a game with, so that was the plan going in."
General Takeaways and Observations
When asked about how things went from a "logistics standpoint"
"I thought it was smooth there. I thought our coaches did a good job communicating on the headset. The game itself, we have a lot to improve on. Really happy with what the offense did in that first drive; Kirk [Cousins] leading us down the field. I was very happy with what our defense did in the second half on the third down after the first half. But there's a lot of things that we need to improve on."
On the rookies improving after watching tape:
"Yeah, [Mendoza] and all the rookies, all the veterans, our whole team, will be really important for us to go improve as a team and just go tell the truth and get better."
On the team leaders stepping up:
"Well, I think we lost by two scores, so we've got to get better there."
On evaluating training camp vs preseason games:
"Well, I think we put a lot of value in practice. We put a lot of value and good on good in practice, and that's sometimes just as good as a game. So, these preseason reps are very valuable, but our evaluation throughout the course of training camp has revealed to me that when we get out on the field, you see a lot of the same. So, things that show up in practice that are not good and things that are positive, they showed up here tonight."
On not challenging a call and late in the game and how the review process went:
"Yeah, I think overall, I was really happy with our process, and we'll keep improving as these next games go, getting ready for Miami."
On the defensive struggles:
"Yeah, third down was not good enough last night in that first half. And when you're not - I thought Arizona did a really good job too of attacking man coverage, and they made some plays on the ball, so the coverage and the pass rush has to work together, and we'll continue to improve it."
On tackling issues:
"Yeah, major area of emphasis. We've got to get better there, and we've got to get very creative as a coaching staff with how we get that done in practice, and we will."
On penalty issues:
"I think the thing that stands out to me, analytically or not, is our penalties. We really hurt ourselves. We put ourselves in some negative situations, and that's not winning football. Offensively, the fact that we didn't turn the ball over is always good. That's something that didn't stand out last night, but offensively, you can't go into a half a football and not score points. So, we didn't help the defense there. We weren't playing team football in that second half."
On joint practices with the Texans next week:
"Oh, I'm really excited about next week, it's going to be extremely competitive. What a great defense that we're going to be going against, those pass rushers are impressive. Our offensive line is going to get some great work being out there in the heat. A different kind of heat will be a great challenge for us in our conditioning. This trip to Houston couldn't have come at a better time for our team."
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