Head Coach Mike Macdonald On The 20-12 Win Over The Jaguars

Mike Macdonald (0:00)

All right, ready to go? All right, it was a great win. Jacksonville's a really good team. They've been playing really well. Just, you go back to process all the time, and I think we nailed our process this week, and I think, you know, the challenge is gonna keep rolling, but focused on our style of ball, and staying composed, staying together, picking each other up, play by play, all that type of stuff. I know it sounds cliche, but I don't really care, because that's how we roll.

But just a great team win. Thought the defense played a tremendous game. You know, we played together, played complimentary. Some things, some funky things happened there, you know, in fourth downs, and you gotta give their quarterback a lot of credit. He's a really good player, and made some plays there in critical moments, and we just kept rebounding and kept fighting. So, and offensively, we came through when we needed to. You know, the four minute, I thought that was a heck of a play call, couple of great play calls that we had, and Sam just operating, obviously Sam had a great game as well. So, excited, excited for this flight home, and then go play Monday Night Football.

SPEAKER_2 (1:10)

Like seven sacks today, kind of pressure, what do you think the pass rush, what was clicking, what wasn't clicking last week?

Mike Macdonald (1:16)

Yeah, I think, I'm gonna give you the same answer, but like how we played the run on early downs, set up situations to force them to pass, then Russian coverage works together, you buy an extra second, Russia can come alive. We didn't do that last week, we did it this week, and that's how we got to play, you know, move forward. So, but the guys played great, sorry Greg, sorry Greg.

SPEAKER_3 (1:39)

How does the confidence that obviously Clint Kubiak has, your team, your players, everyone have, and Sam Darnold showing up now across the board?

Mike Macdonald (1:49)

We have 100% confidence in Sam. He's playing great football, he's making great decisions. He's done that since he showed up, and he's playing great football. Yeah.

SPEAKER_2 (2:01)

DeMarcus Lawrence getting back in this game and then doing what he did.

Mike Macdonald (2:04)

Yeah, he had some guys down. Like, you know, missing Derek Hall was a great player. Hopefully he's back as soon as possible. But D-Law played a tremendous game, but he had two sacks. To be able to play the run the way we played the run, he's one of the guys leading the charge there. You know, just the mentality, too. I mean, the guy is just an absolute beast.

SPEAKER_5 (2:27)

What went into starting Shaquille, and how did you feel like that worked out?

Mike Macdonald (2:30)

Thought Shaq played a great game. He's been practicing really well. So smart, man. Just so smart, competes.

Did have a great week of practice, and that's why we decided to go with him. Neymar has been playing great. He's been doing a good job. Played great on special teams. He's got a hamstring right now, so we'll see.

SPEAKER_5 (2:52)

Nehemiah does.

Mike Macdonald (2:53)

Nehemiah does, yeah, sorry. He'd turn over free against his team. That was critical. We knew that. We had to do that going into the game. They were not an opportunistic team. The numbers speak for themselves.

I thought our ball security was tremendous. I mean, I know we were fortunate on some of those, like, you know, the tip. There's a couple tips where the ball is in jeopardy, so we'll look at those. But otherwise, I thought our ball security was really good.

SPEAKER_5 (3:16)

You guys seem to really nail the kind of the end of the first half, beginning of the second half with the field goal, and then they're coming out of the touch line.

Mike Macdonald (3:21)

Yeah, it was awesome. They decided to take the ball, so that's how we want to play the end of the half. The guys did a great job.

SPEAKER_2 (3:29)

Jaxon has now gone over 100 yards in four or six games. I don't think he's had a game with fewer than 79 What can you say about his ability not just to have a big game here or there, but to do it every week?

Mike Macdonald (3:39)

Yeah, I mean, people are going to focus on them, but when you play complementary ball on one side of the ball, if you're able to run, throw it, action, do the whole thing, it's very hard to take one player out of the game when the ball couldn't go anywhere. So he's taking advantage of the opportunities. We're doing a great job of getting him open, and Sam's got a lot of confidence in him, too, so a lot of positives.