Head Coach Mike Macdonald On The 23-20 Victory Over The Cardinals In Week 4

Mike Macdonald (0:01)

All right, oh man, it's a great win. Really, just look, I'm just really proud of our team and how hard we're playing, how we're sticking together, the positivity, the fight.

Just a really great, great win. I mean, it's a short, obviously, look, it's a short week, you're on the road. Arizona played a good game. It's a good football team we played, we know that. And they did a good job of staying in the game and giving themselves a chance to win. Having said that, we didn't play our best game. And we had opportunities, I think, to put the game away throughout really the second half. And there's a lot of learning experiences, too, that we're going to be able to take from this game so we can improve. But the good news is, is we figured out a way to win the game, which, you know, after week one, we felt like we had an opportunity to win that game. We didn't figure it out. So I feel like our team's growing. We're getting better and just really proud of our guys in the fight. And really the effort this week, you know, to get ready to go and go play their best football. So it would be good to have a break and then hit the ground running on Monday and get ready for Tampa Bay.

SPEAKER_2 (1:07)

Mike, when the game turned so suddenly there at the end, you mentioned the positivity. Who or what was the positivity guy?

Mike Macdonald (1:15)

Yeah, you know, I've been on teams where, you know, like the sky's fallen and whatever. And for us, it was just like, all right, hey, look, we're in, you know, we're identifying the two-minute situation and AD and the guys are talking to the guys on the bench and they're ready to go to overtime. They're talking about our overtime plan. It was just kind of like, hey, what's next? And Clint called some great plays. We had a great protection in that series. We were fortunate with the kick being, you know, not in the landing zone. And then, you know, Sam and Jax were just lights out and just a great job overall. Brian did a great job of managing the clock and that's just how we roll.

SPEAKER_2 (1:56)

I guess you like to do kickoff rules right about now.

Mike Macdonald (2:00)

I love it right now.

SPEAKER_3 (2:02)

Did you get an explanation on why Kobe wasn't down for getting himself up or on the penalty, the holding penalty on Jason?

Mike Macdonald (2:10)

I did not get an explanation, but I didn't ask for one. They just said that, I guess they just said that he wasn't down by contact and the ball was out. So we'll get some clarification on it.

They look close, but we do have to take care of the ball. And on Jackson's penalty, I'm not sure. They just said he had eyes on it and that's what he saw. And you got to go live the fight another day.

SPEAKER_3 (2:33)

For Jason to miss the one and then come right back out.

Mike Macdonald (2:36)

Yeah, I just saw him coming in here. He's just, I've seen this guy play golf. I mean, he's a stud, bro. He just was like ice in his veins. And we knew he was going to make that kick. And I think the whole sideline knew.

SPEAKER_4 (2:50)

Mike, you played leading up to that missed field goal. You as a young head coach, how did you go through the process of evaluating the calculus that goes in? How aggressive, how conservative are we going to be?

Mike Macdonald (3:02)

Yeah, going into that drive, we wanted to be aggressive. And we double moved them there. Jax made a great catch. And once we got into field goal range, we got back into four-minute mode. We thought going up multiple scores there would have done a great job. So look, when we get into four-minute, this is one of those things we're going to be able to learn from is, we got to be a little bit more effective in those situations. In field goals, every yard matters. So it's not like you just hit this magical spot on the field and field goals are automatic. So you're trying to maximize gains. We have to be better in that fringe area overall as an offense. That kind of reared its head today throughout the entire game. Those are some things that we need to be able to learn from and improve moving forward. But that was our thought process.

SPEAKER_5 (3:45)

You didn't get any points out of it, but the throw that Sam made to Jackson.