Q: Over the last four games, Derek Carr’s completion percentage is 55 percent or below, and he's got nine interceptions over his last five games. Anything that you can put your finger on, on why it's going in that direction?
Coach McDaniels: "Yeah. There's a lot of reasons obviously for that. It's never on one person. That's our responsibility, my responsibility. At the end of the day, the passing game and the production of the passing game usually has a lot to do with how we protect, the routes we run, the ability to read the coverage together, throwing and catching. There's a lot that goes into that. I know that statistic gets applied to only one person, but certainly there's other factors. So, I mean, look that's not good enough. And for us to be able to win at this time of the year and be productive, offensively you have to throw the ball better than what we've thrown at times here in the last month and a half. We've been able to win some in spite of that, overall, but clearly that's not the goal. The goal would be to be more productive than what we've been."
Q: Do you need your quarterback to play better?
Coach McDaniels: “Yeah. I mean, look, we all can do better. If we're sitting in the meeting room today thinking that we played great over the last however long it is, I don't think that's really the case. We all can do better, and we should, and we need to. We can coach better. We're all in this together, that's the way it's going to be, and you win and lose as a team. Offensively, you're productive as a group not as one individual or a bunch of individuals. So, everybody can do better and I'm sure he'd be the first one to tell you that he could do the same thing."
Q: As you look at the team's long-term, Derek's contract, if he's injured, is guaranteed moving forward. So, if you guys continue to play him, is that: 'Hey, we're sticking with him in the future?' Or are those all things that have to be talked about?
Coach McDaniels: “I mean, I think there's a lot of things that are going to go into that bucket once we kind of sort through after tonight. There are other things, too. I mean, we have guys – Divine [Deablo], is he worth playing, not playing coming off IR. The guys who got injured here this week or have some things that are nagging them. I think there's a lot of things that you start to talk about relative to taking care of the people who are dealing with things like that. Injuries or contracts, what have you, I think you've got to consider all that stuff. We just got back in this morning, so we're going through the game. We're going to coach the game and correct all the things that need to be corrected. The reality is, is we haven't had any conversations about those things yet. And as we go through the next 24-to-48 hours, I'm sure we'll sort through some of those things. But we're aware of all those things, too."
Q: Could there be a possibility that…
Coach McDaniels: "I think there's a possibility that we would do the right thing regardless of the position, just in terms of the team. So, like I said, Chandler [Jones] went down, Denzel [Perryman] went down. Rushing those guys back. Divine [Deablo] is another one. I mean, there are a lot of things that could go into this, so I'm not going to get up here and prognosticate everything at this point. Like I said, we're going to get in here and coach the game and correct that, and then I think in due time make the right decisions hopefully to protect those guys who we should protect relative to health, and then also do the right thing for the organization as we go forward."
though!
