Coach Dennis Allen discusses the loss to Dallas

Originally published on SBReport.net on Aug. 14, 2012

Raider head coach Dennis Allen spoke with the media Tuesday following a Monday night loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Oakland's first preseason game. 

The following is the transcript from the conference call: 

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Do we have any updates on Stefan Wisniewski’s injury?

Nothing other than it’s his calf and we will be monitoring that as we go on here today.

What did the film tell you and your coaching staff last night after looking at it?

It told us that we have a lot of things to clean up, as far as the little things are concerned. Our execution wasn’t where it needed to be, but we still got a long way to go to get to where we need to get to. 

You said Streater’s stat line looked good last night but you wanted to see more on the film about what he did. What did you see on film from him?

I thought he did a nice job. He executed like he’s been executing all camp. Caught the ball well, was able to get up the field, and not a lot of wasted movement. I thought Rod Streater played really well. 

Jack Crawford was active for the game, yet he didn’t play. Can you explain the decision to keep him on the sidelines?

Yea, he’s still not ready to go as far as that foot is concerned. There’s still a little soreness there so we just thought it was best for us to hold him and not play him in the game. 

Any timetable of when he can come into the game? Will he play in this next game?

I’m not sure about Arizona yet. Again, he really is a day-to-day situation. It’s not anything serious but it there is obviously still some discomfort there. We are trying to push him through it and try to get him out there as soon as we can.

With how quick this next game is coming up on you, how much can you accomplish within the next couple of days of practice and what do you want to address?

Well, I think we can get some things accomplished. Obviously we don’t have as much time to prepare as we would like but we are still in training camp mode and there’s still some things that we’ve got to work on from the execution standpoint. So that’s going to be my message to the team. That’s going to be our motto: to be able to execute the little things better.

What jumped out to you on the tape as something that you really, really liked last night?

I think the things I’ve talked about already. Darren McFadden was obviously very explosive. Two explosive gains in the three touches he had. I think the first team defense played exceptionally well.

And what jumped out to you as something that you’re disappointed at?

I think from a special teams standpoint, we had a couple of tackles inside the 20-yard line, we lost a punt, or two punts actually, and then we didn’t have good operations on our field goal attempts. Those were a couple of things. Offensively, I think the dropped passes were obviously a big issue. I think our tempo in and out of the huddle in the second half wasn’t where it needed to be offensively. Those were probably the biggest negatives, looking back at the game. 

Coach, did you expect that out of Darren McFadden last night, so early in the year coming back from , was that kind of a surprise to see him slash like that early in the game?

Obviously it’s exciting. I don’t know I’d say it is surprising. Everytime he touches the ball, he’s a threat to go the distance. That’s the thing we expect out of Darren and I think our guys did a nice job of blocking up front, both on the screen play and on the explosive run. He’s really a guy that you just got to get him a crease, and next thing you know, he might break it this distance. Not a surprise, but obviously felt real good about it.

Does Jacoby need to do a better job fighting for the ball on the Palmer interception?

I think there’s obviously a couple things there: Carson kind of thought that safety was a little more centered out. It was middle of the field safety so it wasn’t a double coverage situation. It was a thing that you coach your quarterback to do to take that shot when you get those situations. I think Jacoby could have been a little bit better at the end of the route there, trying to break that thing up. Overall, you’re going to take that shot. We want to be aggressive there and we wanted to take a shot and get a big play, it didn’t work out for us.

With McFadden, is it something where you want to try to increase his workload a little bit with each preseason game until the regular season, or are you still waiting to see how he responds?

We are going to look at how the week plays out. Darren needs to get his touches so that he goes into the regular season ready to go. That’s the most important thing for him is to make sure he is fully ready to roll when the opening game comes up on Monday night.

Which of the injured players do you expect to be back at practice tomorrow?

You know, I’m not really sure yet as to who’s going to be back. I would hope that we might get a couple of the guys back. I think Mike Goodson will probably be back tomorrow. I will look at that again this evening, sit down with the trainer and find out more about who we might have back at practice. 

Regarding Mike Goodson, if he is good to go, or whenever he is good to go, what is the timetable when he is able to practice and be able to play in the game against the Cardinals?

I think if he’s able to practice this week, we will get him in the game and let him play against Arizona. 

There no concrete cutoff time to getting him into practice prior to getting him into that Cardinals game?

No. We’ve got Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and we play the game on Friday, so obviously I would expect you need to practice on Wednesday or Thursday to have a chance.