RAIDERS HEAD COACH JACK DEL RIO
Opening Statement:"Tough way to finish. Promising afternoon, lot of back and forth, good ball both quarters. It just got away from us. Turned the ball over and you can't do that. The last four drives were three turnovers and a missed field goal. That's not the way you want to close out a game you want to win."
Q: What's your assessment of Derek Carr?
Coach Del Rio:"He had a rough fourth."
Q: Was he trying to do too much?
Coach Del Rio:"Yeah, probably trying to do too much."
Q: What was the situation in each pick?
Coach Del Rio:"I would say you can't turn the ball over. And in doing so, we put ourselves in some really bad spots. Whenever we line up with our special teams unit for points, we expect to get points. Those are two areas that for sure broke down. Then we get a short field, we still expect to at least half the time to force a field goal, as opposed to giving up six. I don't think either team stopped one and other in the redzone. We were 2-for-2 and they were 4-for-4. So we want to make sure we get stops there."
Q: Was there any miscommunication on the second interception?
Coach Del Rio:"I'm not certain of the one you're referring to."
Q: The Marcus Peters interception in the middle of the field.
Coach Del Rio:"In the middle of field? Yeah, that was a crosser that got feet tangled up and got knocked down on the play, so he stopped crossing."
Q: You had good field position swings in the first half, was that an opportunity to get some distance?
Coach Del Rio:"Yeah, you'd like to. We came into this game recognizing that this team we were playing had benefited the last five weeks from winning the field position battle, winning a lot of that hidden yardage, and winning the turnover battle. Those are two areas that we were determined to flip it on them today. Early going, that was exactly what we had done. We were winning the field position battle, had opportunities and had forced a couple of turnovers and not had any ourselves. With that, where we didn't finish doing those things, the game got away from us."
Q: What happened after the opening drive?
Coach Del Rio:"I think both teams are going to ask themselves the same thing. They went down on their first drive and were able to score. So I think the game started with both teams going down on their opening drive and scoring. Then it settled into a little bit of a struggle where both defenses were playing well and both offenses were having problems generating what we all go into the game looking for."
Q: Does Carr still have growing to do?
Coach Del Rio:"Well there's no question. Regardless of how today went, that would be the case. He's one of several good, young players that will continue to grow from experiences both good and bad. There were some good experiences earlier in that ball game. But certainly at the end, there were opportunities where it has to be different for him to be the player he wants to be and for us to be the team we want to be."
Q: Why did Latavius Murray's success change after that first drive?
Coach Del Rio:"It's hard for me to sit up here and really be able to accurately tell you what happened. I think certainly for us we talk about the combination blocks and when they're good and when we're hitting the lane and blocking down field that we're able to be explosive in the run game. I think we did that early. Why it altered later? Was it adjustments by them? Was it failure on our part to do certain things that we did earlier? I'm not sure yet. I'll have a better idea after looking at it. But that's typically the case, that if there's something that you did earlier that is taken away, perhaps they adjusted or perhaps we're not doing it as well the second time around."
Q: Is Donald Penn's injury serious?
Coach Del Rio:"No, he's fine. He got the air knocked out of him."
Q: With bubble screens, was it the same issues?
Coach Del Rio:"Yes."
Q: Are you happy with the tackling?
Coach Del Rio:"Certain parts of it. I think there was a stretch, I know for sure that the start of the second half, that first drive got them second-and-14, second-and-13, those are situations where you had an opportunity to make a good tackle and keep them third-and-long. And we were not able to do so."
Q: How would you assess the team's mood?
Coach Del Rio:"Our mood? I think we're disappointed that we didn't close the way we wanted. One thing about this group, there's no pulling apart. It's a tight group. We'll remain tight. We'll come back to work and expect to be stronger next time out."
Q: Was Nate Allen injured?
Coach Del Rio:"Nate did injure his knee and did not return. We'll know more tomorrow."
RAIDERS QB DEREK CARR
Q: What went wrong late in the 4th quarter?
Carr:"A lot. We turned the ball over, can't do that, especially against a good football team. That's my fault and we'll get it fixed."
Q: When you throw picks, do you wear it? Does it eat at you?
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Carr:** "I can put it aside. I get mad obviously. I get pretty ticked off especially how some of them happened I got pretty upset but sometimes those things are going to happen. It just sucked that it happened all back-to-back like that."
Q: Could you describe what happened on those?
Carr: "The first one, I was just trying to make a play. Seth [Roberts] popped wide open, did a great job. I was going to throw it to him and I got hit when I went to throw it to him. The second one [Michael] Crabtree's feet just got tangled up. I threw the ball on time when I usually do and they were planning man coverage and the dude that wasn't covering him man caught it. The third one it was the one to [Amari] Cooper. We were just down, just trying to make a throw in there. It's a tight window throw. It was probably not a throw I would throw early on in a football game but when we need some chunk plays, you gotta make a tight throw like that and it just happened to get tipped up."
Q: Do you think you were trying to do too much?
Carr:"On the first one, absolutely. On the first one, absolutely. The second one I didn't feel that way. The third one I didn't feel that way. It was just we were at that point in the game."
Q: Were you feeling frustrated?
Carr:"Oh yeah. I get frustrated any time we don't win or I turn the ball over or anything like that. I always get frustrated. It's tough. It stings you but you have to move on. We have to move on. We have to get ready to play next week."
Q: How did you play today?
Carr: "Not how I wanted."
Q: Does that mean OK, not so good?
Carr:"You can grade me, I don't know."
Q: Do you feel like this impacts your playoff chances?
Carr: "Absolutely. You're exactly right. It obviously doesn't help us. You have to win late in the season and so it didn't help, but there's nothing you can do but go back to work and try and win the next week. We say it a lot and you hear it a lot from people that stand up here, but that's really all that is in front of us. It's all that we can do. Obviously, we wanted to do more. It wasn't good enough, but you look forward to the next one."
Q: You had a lot of good field position in the 1st half that you weren't able to take advantage of. How much did that affect you?
Carr:"That was a big thing that I was thinking about to. We had some short fields and things like that. Again, you've got to give credit to them. They're a really good defense. They have a stingy front. They have really good corners. They squat on routes. They're really good on defense, but we feel like we're really good on offense. When you don't punch the ball in or get points on short fields that eats at you too."
Q: You started great on the opening drive and then slowed down. Why couldn't you keep that momentum?
Carr:"I'm not sure. Until I go look at it and say oh well my feet were wrong here or my eyes or that's what happened or that's what happened. I don't know. I can't put a finger on it and say well this is the moment that everything just went down."
Q: What has this season taught you about what it takes to win?
Carr:"It's tough. It's really hard to win in this league. We know how but we obviously didn't do that today. I didn't do a good enough job for my team."
Q: You had a lot of drops today too, why do you think the drops are still so high?
Carr: "I really don't know. That's one of those things that are going to happen obviously you try and limit those as much as you can, but, I'm not sure."
Q: Amari Cooper had one of those drops, are you still as confident throwing to him as you always have been?
Carr:"Absolutely, the guy is amazing. He's a great route runner, has made a lot of plays for me, made a lot of plays today, so absolutely."
Q: You had a risky throw to Michael Crabtree, how do you keep the balance and chose to thread the line or play it safe?
Carr: "I was very confident that I could get it in there and Crabtree went on his route and I just let it go. The only other one I could think of is when I got hit, I was trying to do too much and I was really just trying to compete and make a play and Seth popped right open and I was trying to do too much and I got hit."
Q: Was it reasonable to expect playoffs after this game?
Carr: "Absolutely. We've shown at times that we can be but, obviously we didn't do that today. We can't say that we could be and we should be, and we didn't do that today."
Q: What is it that you have to do to get over that hump?
Carr:"Win enough games, really. That's all it comes down to. No one cares about anything but winning in this league. A lot of things are really good and a lot of things get thrown under the table when you win so yeah, I'd say that's what we haven't done yet, is win enough games. Our record is what we've earned and it's not 'this happened or this happened', somehow, someway, that's just how we've learned."
Q: Does the good and bad present a learning experience in the NFL?
Carr: "No, absolutely, even last week during winds, great winds, even hard losses, I'm going to be learning until I'm done playing and if that ever changes then I've got to stop playing because I think too much of myself so I will always be learning throughout this process."
Q: Latavius Murray was successful in the first drive, how good did that feel? Why did it fall off?
Carr: "Yeah, again, I don't know why it felt off or why but absolutely, when Latavius is running like that, making big explosive gains and those things, it's fun for the offensive line and it makes my job and the receiver's job easier because they have to add someone to the box and all those things, they all go hand in hand just like if we're throwing all over the place and they start playing soft, Latavius is happy. This is a team thing and so when those things are happening when he's busting off those long runs, it feels good."
RAIDERS TE LEE SMITH
Q: Could you share the general feel of the locker room after a loss like that?
Smith:"This is one of the best locker rooms I've ever been in in my life as far as us having such a close bond, there's no finger pointing, there's no placing blame. In the NFL it's different than the other professional sports; we only get 16 of these. And when you've worked as hard and we've worked and you have a group of guys that are as close as we are, it just sucks when you don't win. We're definitely not going to pout our heads past tonight. We're going to obviously sit around and be frustrated with the outcome today, but tomorrow morning we're going to get right back to work. We're backed into a corner a little bit but this is when the true men on this team, which is everyone, are going to show that we sure as hell aren't going to quit, and we're going to keep fighting."
Q: Is the root of the frustration the drastic shift in momentum in the fourth quarter?
Smith:"It's hard to win when you turn the ball over. There's nowhere to place any blame. Each and every person can look in the mirror and there's definitely somewhere you could've been better individually, and we obviously have to be better as a team. Props to Kansas City. They're not going to beat themselves. They're a very disciplined football team. I have a lot of respect for them as players, for [Head] Coach [Andy] Reid. When you go out there and shoot yourself in the foot, that's a really hard team to beat."
Q: You guys had three or four possessions where you got the ball near midfield and crossed over but couldn't score. How big were those opportunities?
Smith:"You just have to be consistent in all three phases. When you stub your toe a little bit in certain situations, obviously it's hard to win football games. Once again, we're going to get back to work like we have every week this season, win or lose. This is a good group of men, a good football team, it's a solid group of coaches. All of us just want to get this bad taste out of our mouth and get back to work. Right now it sucks. Obviously you can point out a lot of different things in that game that went wrong, and we just have to get them fixed." **
RAIDERS LB MALCOLM SMITH**
Q: They scored 20 points off of turnovers, so do you as a defense feel like you did enough to win this game?
Smith:"No, we should've been better in the redzone. You can still hold teams to field goals. Sometimes you're put in that spot and you have to rise up."
Q: Knowing that keeping your playoff chances alive was on the line, does it make it tougher to swallow?
Smith:"Obviously. Especially losing to a division opponent in the situation it's in. But we have to keep competing. We have greater goals and hopefully we can learn from this."
Q: How do you keep the team together and stay focused?
Smith:"Like I said, this is a thing that we're really trying to turn around. We still have some division games left. We can still be physical and set the tone for the future."
Q: They were very efficient on their first scoring drive and then you guy obviously played better after that. What adjustments were made?
Smith:"Shoring up our responsibilities and communicating a little bit better. I feel like we gave ourselves a chance on defense. We just have to get better in the redzone."
Q: The pass rush has started to come alive the last couple weeks. What's been the difference for you guys?
Smith:"I think we're covering better on the back end, and those guys are getting there. They have a good mix together, they're working on stuff every day, so it's been showing up well."
Q: What did Head Coach Jack Del Rio tell you after the game?
Smith:"Just to keep our heads up and stay in it. You never know what can happen in this league, so we're going to keep competing. We have a good team to play next week and we're looking forward to it."
RAIDERS CB DAVID AMERSON
**Q: Could you share with us the emotions of a seemingly crushing defeat?
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Amerson:"It's a tough loss. Definitely a tough loss. It felt like we had the game in hand and we had a chance. There's a lot of mistakes we made, but with all that said, we still had a chance at the end. We just didn't make enough plays to get it done."
Q: I know you don't play on offense, but an uncharacteristic three interceptions for Derek Carr and I know you must have had to feel badly for him.
Amerson:"He's a great quarterback. I won't take [anything] away from him. Everyone makes mistakes and I'm sure they can get it corrected and we've got to move on. All that said, he's a great quarterback and I'm sticking behind our guy."
*Q: What did you think of the bubble screen on the 1-yard line? *
Amerson:"Yeah, they schemed up a perfect play for us and we've got to do better playing it to keep them out of the end zone."
Q: Can you give us a barometer on how you move forward at this point, at 5-7?
Amerson:"You've got to take care of business. We've got four more games left. We've got to try to win those out and just see what happens. That's all we can do."
Q: How deflating is it to be right there in another game and not be able to pull it out?
Amerson:"It hurts, man. It hurts, definitely at home in front of our home crowd. It definitely hurts. That's a loss that's going to be tough to swallow."
Q: Does it make it more frustrating that this team appears to be something special, yet still falls short?
Amerson:"Definitely, man. I feel like there are a lot of games that we should have won, including this one. We've got a great group of guys, talented. We're just as talented as anybody in the league. I just wish it said more with our record."
RAIDERS RB LATAVIUS MURRAY
Q: When you have those instances when you beat yourself multiple times, does that add to the frustration?
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Murray: **"No. We had chances to bounce back and still go ahead. Like I said, they are all tough regardless of if we beat ourselves, which game, it doesn't really matter. We lost, that's it."
Q: Can you put a finger on what Kansas City was doing? You had 50 of your yards on the first drive, but then it seems like they slowed you down.
Murray:"I think it's more so us. I'm sure I could have run better in the second half. Yeah, 50 yards came in that first quarter, so make sure I get back to work and be better next week."
RAIDERS S CHARLES WOODSON
Q: How tough was this loss?
Woodson:"Oh man. I've played a lot of football in my life – won a lot of games, lost a lot of games – but today was probably one of the hardest losses that I've been a part of in my career. That was a tough loss."
Q: What kind of advice did you give QB Derek Carr?
Woodson:"Derek's young. He's going to learn from every experience that he has out there on the field. Today will be no different. He'll have time to reflect on everything that happened and look over the tape. From what I know about Derek and the confidence that he has, he'll bounce back, he'll be fine and he'll learn from this."
Q: What made this loss so tough to swallow?
Woodson:"We were treating this as our playoffs. We needed to win. Basically we needed to win out. For us it was that playoff atmosphere, it was a rival, it was the Chiefs. You had your chances and everybody understands what's at stake at this point. I felt like the team was building on something and it felt like we were going to get this win today, so it was tough. It's always tough to look up at the scoreboard at the end of the game when everything is so promising early and all of a sudden it looks lopsided when you look up at the end. It's a hard one. It's a tough one to swallow."
Q: How do you keep the team together for these last four games?
Woodson:"You just have to keep grinding. The thing that you do in this situation is you just continue to work on your craft, whether it's a D-lineman, O-lineman, D-back, receiver or whatever, you just continue to work on your craft and continue to get better. We still have games left on our schedule. We need to go out there and be the best that we can be. Regardless of where we're at, there's always a pride factor – I don't care who you are or what team it is – and you need to go out there and have some respect for the game and some respect for what you do, and continue to grind."
Q: Take us through the play with Chiefs TE Travis Kelce when you ripped the ball out of his hands.
Woodson:"Once the defender gets the hands around him and gets him wrapped up, your job as a defensive player, as a second guy in, is to go after the ball. I think it was [Raiders S] Nate [Allen] who had him secured. My whole career I've been about getting after the football, so when I saw it in the arm that was closest to me, I have to get it. So that was that."
Q: Derek's been pretty resilient all along but the fact is he's still in his second year. Do you worry about a game like this lingering with him a little bit or has he shown and ability to brush things like this off?
Woodson:"Again, he's young. Every experience that he goes through he's going to learn from it. He's going to be able to grow as a player. The ceiling is very high for Derek. This is just one blip on the radar and he'll be fine going forward."
RAIDERS WR AMARI COOPER
**Q: Was the final score misleading based on how you guys played today?
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Cooper:"It can't be misleading, because that was the actual score. It is what it is."
Q: On the last interception, it would have been a tough catch. What did you see on the last play? Did you think you had a chance to bring that in?
Cooper:"Definitely. It hit both of my hands. I should have run a more defined route and I would have gotten more separation."
Q: Did the turf have any impact on you today?
Cooper:"It didn't have any impact for me. I can't speak for any other players."
Q: To be up by six and then down so quickly, was that tough to wrap your head around?
Cooper:"Yeah, it seemed like every game we've been in, it's been a game of runs. Unfortunately, the run didn't go in our favor today. "
Q: Does it make it more frustrated given that you were chasing somebody ahead of you in the standings?
Cooper:"We can't really worry about that. I wasn't even thinking about it. I didn't have my mind set on that."
Q: There were a few drives where you got the ball right near midfield, but could only score on one of those. Did you feel you were letting them off the hook then?
Cooper:"Yeah, it's a game of field position. We had really great field position. We just couldn't capitalize. That's how it is sometimes."
Q: What do you think happened on the fourth-and-2 drop? Did it affect you for the rest of the game?
Cooper:"No, it didn't affect me. Of course you want to catch the ball every time as a receiver, but sometimes it doesn't go that way. You just have to bounce back. There was still a lot of time left in the game, so I just let it go."
