Head Coach Mike Macdonald Recaps The Week 6 Win Over Jacksonville

Brian (0:01)

So, a couple of questions, Coach. Curious with Leonard Williams, there's been a lot of talk about him on the field, and obviously how well he's playing. But have you ever had a player that you've worked with that has had as much impact off the field, on both sides of the ball, working with the offensive line, working with the defensive side, leading across both sides the way he's doing that?

Mike Macdonald (0:27)

I never really thought of it through that lens, but no one really comes to mind. Yeah, I guess, to your point, it's pretty remarkable. It's pretty rare.

And I don't know the stats, but the guy played a tremendous game yesterday, set a lot of those guys up for success, playing at a really high level. Whole front played great. And the effect that he's had with our, especially our young offensive lineman over the course of the season has been really cool that really a lot of all of our defensive linemen and veteran offensive line guys, willing to sharpen each other has just been a 12 is one type of thing. Pretty cool.

Brian (1:14)

Related to that, I was just curious, you spent a lot of time having players actually work across or get to know each other across position groups and across sides of the ball. Are you seeing that kind of bear fruit as the team's going through the season and the connections made across position groups?

Mike Macdonald (1:31)

Well, I hope so, but let's not attribute that to things that I'm... We got great coaches, we got great players that care about the team and care about their teammates. And they've put a lot of investment into our connection as a group. And there's going to be testimony. There's going to be adversity. We saw it last week. We saw it out of the San Francisco week where things don't go our way. And we have to do a great job of keep responding to those things by sticking together. And I think that's what we saw this week.

Brian (2:02)

All right, last one. With Devin Witherspoon and Julian Love, you mentioned that you thought Devin Witherspoon was maybe going to be a little bit earlier to practice last week and that didn't happen eventually. Was there a setback and do you expect him to have a chance to practice this week?

Mike Macdonald (2:20)

Yeah, just again, I'm learning through the health thing, but it's just, you know, there's a lot of, there's, it's a science, but it's also, you know, things change, you know, there's different opinions at hand and imaging and testing on a daily basis. So, you know, it's just, it's a little bit more volatile than people would probably want, including me sometimes. But that's just how you have to handle things. So, yeah, at some point, we hope Devin's out there this week. I can't tell you, we've moved the schedule back. Basically, we're going to get the, you know, Monday night football, you get the extra day. So, we're going to use the extra day here on the front end and then keep our normal weekly cadence starting on Thursday. So, we'll see as the week unfolds.

Brian (3:07)

Okay. Thanks, Coach.

Mike Macdonald (3:09)

Mazda Vida.

SPEAKER_3 (3:10)

Hey, Mike. This morning, you talked about connection toughness, 12 is one, as you always do. And then you had this comment. You said we've earned the right to win the games we play. Can you elaborate on that just from a process perspective?

Mike Macdonald (3:29)

Sure. Yeah. This is a tough league, man. It's a tough league and it'll humble you in a second. And there's great teams and great players and great coaches.

And you got to go through it. You got to go through the process from starting in April in the off-season program, even before then when the players show up. And you got to go nail the summer and keep your body in great shape and get ready for camp. And you got to go nail camp days and build that callus and do all the things that it takes to all the situation where there's so much work that needs to go into it. And our guys have nailed those steps. And so it's really it's a message to our guys that they've earned the right to be confident because they've they've gone through the process so well. And they stuck together doing it. They've done it unselfishly and with a sense of urgency. And we have fun doing it. Take pride in that we're creating it's an environment where guys love coming to play football. And now it's game time where we want to go show the fruits of our labor where we go win games.