Mike Macdonald: "Geno Is Operating The Offense At A High Level"

Mike Macdonald (0:02)

All right, got a bigger crew today. Good to see everybody.

Yeah, short week. So, this is a little funky operation here. I'm not sure which press conference this is. Is this the Wednesday press conference, or is this the post game press conference? But yeah, the guys have had yesterday off. We started late today, try to get some more sleep, some more recovery. We'll go slower today, and then really ramp up and kick it into gear tomorrow. So, looking forward to the next few days and taking the next step.

SPEAKER_2 (0:34)

Is it a walk through then?

Mike Macdonald (0:35)

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_3 (0:37)

You didn't have this, obviously, in Baltimore, the travel distance, the time change. What have you learned about that earlier?

Mike Macdonald (0:43)

I'm not used to it yet.

Yeah, I think it's going to be a process over the next X amount of time, talking through guys, getting feedback. There's going to be, we'll keep making tweaks until we feel like we've came to the right recipe. So that's where we're at right now. I think we're doing a lot of good things. We've gotten a lot of good feedback from the guys. I think as the year goes on, I think the next one's Atlanta. We'll kind of get across that bridge when we come to it. But there's a lot of good things we're doing, and we'll make a couple of tweaks, and hopefully feel like we're kind of getting closer to the sweet spot.

SPEAKER_3 (1:21)

Have you changed anything noteworthy you can share with this tangible change?

Mike Macdonald (1:26)

We tried to get there a little earlier. We had a little flight delay on Saturdays, so we're trying to do it, but just things work out where you can't get it done. So we might alter our leave time, try to get there a little earlier.

SPEAKER_4 (1:39)

With the San Francisco game coming up Thursday, and then this game in quick succession, are you game planning for both at the same time, or how are you approaching that?

Mike Macdonald (1:48)

No, we're 150,000% on the Giants right now. And then when the game ends, we'll be 150,000% on the Niners. I'm sure a lot of our younger coaches, once this week starts to wind down, they'll be working ahead. But all of our focus is on the Giants until the game's over.

SPEAKER_5 (2:09)

Mike, what's the process for you in figuring out how much workload the guys can handle with coming off of having a short weekend and having a short week next week?

Mike Macdonald (2:19)

Well, the good news is they don't change the game times throughout the year. So we've been able to factor this into our processes. Sam Rams has been great bouncing ideas off of, we track all the player tracking and everything. Again, there's no secret recipe on it.

A lot of it is a feel for where the guys are at, too, and what they need and what the team needs. Any given day, we're just trying to do what's best for the guys. We felt like this is a good cadence, how we operated last week, going into this week and then our short week schedule for next week.

SPEAKER_5 (2:58)

First time for you guys coming off the loss, what do you want to see from the players in terms of how they're going to perform?

Mike Macdonald (3:04)

I think every day's approach is going to be the same expectation. We're trying to improve, we're trying to take the next step. Let's look at what happened through an impartial eye so we can attack the problems and let's move forward to keep it positive. There's a lot of good stuff on tape, a lot of stuff we obviously need to fix and make right.

But that's the case anytime we step foot out there and toe the line. So that will be the same mentality.

SPEAKER_6 (3:34)

I think you guys are averaging 39 passes a game, but it doesn't feel like a one dimensional offense. What do you like about the way that that offense has been called so far?

Mike Macdonald (3:44)

Yeah, we're not shooting for a number of passes or whatever going into each game. I think it's just what it takes to be successful. Trying to put our guys in best positions.

I think Geno's operating the offense at a really high level where we're getting in and out of certain plays that will dictate some runner pass in certain situations. But I think the guys are confident. I think there's a lot of great execution out there. You've seen the old line start to come together. So we're moving in the right direction. And I'm not really worried about the pass play numbers right now. But yeah, you're right, it just doesn't feel that many. The way this game played out turned into a drop back fest, which it needed to be for New Yorkers to have a chance to win the game. So some games kind of dictate those terms.