Pete Carroll Gives Vital Updates as Raiders Head to KC

Q: We saw Jakobi Meyers and Brock Bowers back out there. How are they feeling, and what's the likelihood of them playing on Sunday? 

Head Coach Pete Carroll: "Yeah, well, both of them got work today. Jakobi [Meyers] got more than Brock [Bowers] did. He looks like he bounced back pretty well, so we're very hopeful that he'll be available. Brock got his first workout here in a while. His workouts have been great during the week. I watched him when he was working with the trainers, and he's really going good. So, we're really close on him." 

Q: You talked about the improvement on special teams last week compared to where they were. Are you confident that's changes that are substantive going forward, that you're confident in? 

Coach Carroll: "Well, we're getting a couple guys back in the right spots and all that helped, definitely helped us, but we played really well, and we kicked the ball really well, and placed the ball well, and we executed a really good game plan last week. Let's come back and see how we do. This is a really good group we're going against, but we plan on going ahead and leaving all that stuff behind. We were really excited about Jonny Rhattigan jumping in with these guys and helping out, and kicks coming back and AJ's [Cole] effort last week, after spraining his ankle the week before, was fantastic. So, we're going in the right direction." 

Q: Would Brock Bowers be considered questionable at this point? 

Coach Carroll: "I don't know that yet." 

Q: I know the term rivalry is a relative term, but over your career, how have you treated rivalry games? Do you treat them the same as every other game, or do you treat it differently? Coach 

Carroll: "Yeah, thanks for the question. Yeah, we approach every week like it's a championship game, like it's the only game you got. And we don't rate them, we don't gauge them on who, where, or whether you're playing on Monday night or Thursday night or Sunday afternoon. We don't gauge those things, and the reason is because we want to win every game we play. 

“We want to play the best we can possibly play, no matter who we're playing, because we're practicing to do that, and that's why we'll give it everything we got in preparation, and then the walk throughs and the work on the field and all of that, the planning, the game planning, everything, we're giving everything we got to every game. 

“So, we can't do any better than that, so it doesn't matter who we play or where we're playing. And that's been an ongoing approach for a lot of years, and I've liked it. I think it balances out these kinds of situations and questions that you might ask, and these guys should think of it -- this is the biggest game in the world. It's the only one we got. We may never get another one, you don't know. So, that's how we have approached it."