Mike Macdonald: "I'm Proud Of Our Guys' Fight"

Mike Macdonald (0:01)

All right, yeah, just, man, I'd say disappointed with the lack of being able to take advantage of the opportunities we had to win this football game. I will say this, that may I just want to plead with our, I just want to first of all say thanks to our fans for showing up, being allowed places electrically when we started to make some plays at the end of the half, end of the fourth quarter, taking it to overtime, they were right there with us the whole way. And I just promise you like we're doing everything in our power and then some to create a nightmare at home. And right now we're not doing it. So we're going to go to work. So the bye week is going to be, it's a big week for us to get better. Take a look at what's, like right now we have an idea of the symptoms, but what's going on underneath process wise on why we're not playing complimentary football in 60 minutes. So that's what we're going to be attacking this week.

And then we'll come back to work and move forward. But I am proud of our guys' fight. They played their tails off. They played hard, last of the final second. You know, after facing all the adversity that we either faced or created for ourselves. And so I just felt like we didn't flinch and just, and battled. So we got the right guys. We just have to make it come to life. So, you know, but we're our backs against the walls and we got to go.

SPEAKER_2 (1:28)

The decision, you know, the time to go for our fourth down, and then the play call there. Can you just take against that?

Mike Macdonald (1:32)

Well, again, when we is, that was our, that was a play call we liked. We liked the look. We got to be able to get a half yard in two shots. You know, great football teams convert third and fourth and short. And right now we're not doing that. So, you know, there's math behind, if you, you know, if you, if you, if you kick the field goal, they're on four downs all the way to field goal range. I felt like we had a great opportunity to go win it with a touchdown right there, so we went for it.

SPEAKER_3 (1:58)

A similar vein there, Mike. The offensive line, you had a number of penalties up front, the snap issues today, and not being able to get that half yard as you mentioned. How do you kind of see up front and what happened there today and where you guys are at with that right now?

Mike Macdonald (2:11)

Well, we're not there yet for by any stretch of the imagination. And again, I thought the guys played hard. We've been playing hard up front. But, you know, that's going to be part of what we're looking at over the next week. And I just say it's fair to say, you know, in all three phases, it's kind of all on the table right now of adjustments, things we need to move and shake, and really be evaluating everything. So that'll be a big part of it. Would you make a genosis?

SPEAKER_2 (2:39)

It's like a lot of highs and lows.

Mike Macdonald (2:42)

Well, he made some big time plays for us. It's not easy. He didn't have a lot of time back there. They had a good rush plan. We got to protect him better. And I'm sure he's going to tell you that he's going to take ownership of the three picks. We got to make smarter decisions in that way. We got to finish drives. I'm going to take care of the football. I mean, you guys see it, we see it.

We have to be better if we're going to win.

SPEAKER_4 (3:09)

What did you see on the third one in particular?

SPEAKER_3 (3:11)

It looked like AJ got held up as he was crossing the formation.

Mike Macdonald (3:18)

I honestly got to watch it. I can't give you a good answer on that one.

SPEAKER_5 (3:21)

Mike, what was your message to them in the locker room after the game?

Mike Macdonald (3:24)

Similar to what I've told you guys is we got guys that fought, but we have to go to work and make this right. Because right now, we're doing too many things that are not winning football. It's not complimentary. And we're going to go to...

Just the same mentality we've had every week. We got to keep that going, and we're going to find the solution at some point. So right now, we just don't have the... I wish I had the solution right now, but we're going to go to work, and we're going to figure it out.