Mike Macdonald: "We're Still Hungry To Improve"

Mike Macdonald (0:00)

All right, good to see everybody in person. What do we got?

SPEAKER_2 (0:06)

When you look at what your defense did yesterday, what part of that should give them the most confidence moving forward?

Mike Macdonald (0:13)

Just, I think we're confident in our process, and you have to go through all the steps to have confidence stepping out there on Sunday. So you can't skip steps, you can't go around stuff, you got to go through it. And the guys know that, but we've been doing it the whole time, but trying to get better at our process. Look, we're still, we're always going to have the mentality of, how do you find an edge here? How do you find an edge there process wise? But I think it's coming into focus on what it takes to play at a high level.

SPEAKER_3 (0:47)

Mike, speaking of confidence in the process, as coaches without telling us too much, what is, how important is that and how do you continue to still have confidence in the players?

Mike Macdonald (0:59)

Just clarity. You give them clarity and if you're together, then they, you have to, then you'll have confidence, you know, like, in order to have confidence, you have to have clarity. You have to have done it on the field. You have to play with anticipation. You have to know what to do.

You have to trust the guy next to you. So it's kind of all the things, but I'd say clarity drives that whole thing.

John (1:26)

The way you guys are doing defensively, how much of that starts with front and fence, early down?

Mike Macdonald (1:31)

Yeah, that's a great point, John. Everything starts with that. I mean, if you're behind the sticks and you're chasing your tail, then it's tough sledding. You're fighting uphill battles, so if you want to really play on your terms and you got to try to make teams one-dimensional.

SPEAKER_5 (1:49)

You mentioned this morning on the radio show that you're getting to know all these coaches, you hadn't had a lot of time, none of them had a lot of time together. Seems like NFL season is like a submarine, like same faces, close quarters, a lot of pressure. If you were to give advice to...

Mike Macdonald (2:03)

I've heard that one, but probably right.

SPEAKER_5 (2:05)

If you were to give advice to a new coach, new head coach, would you prioritize having more relationships, prior relationships with coaches, or what have you learned over that?

Mike Macdonald (2:15)

I've thought about this. I think that's a short term answer to that. So I don't know if that's the long term solution. So there's definitely trade offs to just hiring people that you know.

But is that the best thing for your team long term? I don't know. It's kind of probably different for everybody. If you're someone that runs a specific system and you guys that run your stuff, it might be the way to go. But yeah, there's a lot of lessons learned on things that, hey, if I do this thing over again, how could we kind of get ourselves in a better spot, get, you know, understand some things? Absolutely. Like that's going through our minds all the time. You don't have the luxury though. You know, the luxury you have is tomorrow, you know, and the rest of the day. So you try to make the best of that.

John (3:03)

Coach, you spoke this morning about your optimism with the one game on offense that's heading in the right direction. What are you seeing on film that's suggesting that?

Mike Macdonald (3:12)

Yeah, sure. You're looking through it from, hey, like, how we're coming up with our plan, how we're implementing it, how we're practicing it, how it's coming to life on the field. There's some good stuff out there. It's just not as much as we want it or as consistent as we want it, but there's some good stuff, and our guys are working really hard at it. Our coaches are dividing some really good plans, in my opinion, that we're still going to try to improve on, but we're on the right track.

SPEAKER_2 (3:41)

How have you seen the running backs handle that? Like, they want more yards on the ground, but it doesn't seem like they are outwardly frustrated by it. Does that make sense? Like, they're willing to go with the process.

Mike Macdonald (3:51)

Yeah, they're part of the crew. They're part of the team, and everybody wants more yards on the ground. Everybody wants more points. Everybody wants less takeaways. I mean, you can go in any building in the NFL, and they're going to tell you the same thing. But it's about how connected you are, how bought in you are on the process, are you doing the right things.