Mike Macdonald: "The Leaders Are Driving Our Team Right Now"

Mike Macdonald (0:05)

Hello, everyone. Good morning. John Boyle, get us going.

SPEAKER_2 (0:09)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_3 (0:10)

Mike, there's been a few late game situations this year where you've brought pressure and big moments. What does that say about the faith you have in the guys on the back end? And there are a couple of times they wouldn't reek in different games, just to hold up, because obviously if you bring that pressure, that can leave them in tough spots.

Mike Macdonald (0:26)

Yeah, just finished with Brock and Sulk with a similar question. It's, you have to have, we have faith in our guys in those critical moments. I mean, shoot, they're the ones really are asking for those aggressive type calls. So they're the ones that make it come to life. And we're not married to that, those types of plays, it just so happened. We've had, we brought some pressure in some of those moments. But we're always just thinking through the lens of what we feel like are, it's going to give our guys the best chance to win that situation, help us go win the game.

SPEAKER_4 (1:05)

Mike, elegance, simplicity, could you elaborate a little bit on that?

Mike Macdonald (1:12)

Yeah, in short, it's, you know, we want it to look complex to our opponents and keep it simple for us. And then there's a way that, you know, you can structure your systems and how you teach it and wording that there's an art to it where we believe that if you, you can do it better than others. So it's about doing simple stuff better than your competition and then you can dress it up. And that's how you create great systems and great teams and great schemes and make it come to life on Sunday.

SPEAKER_4 (1:48)

And then one more, what did you see? You have a lot of leaders and you've told us that. What did you see from your leaders this week just to prepare and this quick turnaround?

Mike Macdonald (1:59)

Yeah, they've been like this. They're steadfast in our mission and they're driving our team right now so really pleased with our leadership on our football team and we'll be counting them again this week and moving forward.

Greg.

SPEAKER_5 (2:19)

Good morning, Mike. How alarming was last night's on offense?

Mike Macdonald (2:25)

I wouldn't call it alarming. It wasn't up to our standard on our production, on how we want to operate, but we did do the things we needed to do to win the game.

We played a little bit of the field position game in the second half. We finally flipped field position, again, just told Brock and Salk, the game kind of declared there in the second half on how we had it to play. So we slowed it down a little bit and became a field position game, which had been in our territory most of the game. So I would have liked for us to be able to get it out in some of those situations. But when we did in the latter part of the game going into the last drive, that was big for us to make Chicago have to go 30 or 40 yards instead of just 10 or 15

SPEAKER_5 (3:14)

How much is Kenny McIntosh earning a more prominent role? And I heard you mentioned a half hour ago that you challenged him to stay ready. How did you do that and why?

Mike Macdonald (3:25)

Yeah, he has. I mean, he's earned a bigger role and we need him right now. That's where we stand with the Ken Walker situation.

And I didn't want to make too much of it with Ken, but Kenny McIntosh. But when you're not a starter and you don't get that many reps, when you do get reps, they're at a premium and you got to keep showing that you're ready to go. And there's a couple reps here and there throughout the season. And he was great. He's a hard worker. He's tough. But sometimes guys, they just need a little reminder of what they're battling for, that the competition is still there even though we're not talking about actual snaps on Sunday. And he's done a great job of earning a bigger role by week by week.

SPEAKER_5 (4:11)

And when you say you challenge them, how do you do that? You just go up to them and say, hey, you got to buck up and earn this or do it?

Mike Macdonald (4:18)

Yeah, you have your style of how you're going to talk to your guys. And there's different ways to do it. A lot of times it's me having a conversation with them.