Raiders' Dont'e Thornton Reveals Critical Areas of Improvement

Raiders Head Coach Pete Carroll spoke following Monday's loss. Below is a partial transcript.

Q: What were your thoughts on the big plays you guys made on defense late in the game to give yourself some hope? 

Coach Carroll: "Yeah, I think this is a defense that's going to come together and continue to be really difficult on our opponents. The running game has not been the issue at all. We've been able to get some rush. We've made some plays; our corners made some nice plays tonight. You got to give credit to Justin Herbert. 

“He's a really good player, and he made good decisions and good choices, and when he had his open guy, he made the big play. It was just a crushing play because it was an easy play for us to defend, and we just got caught up a little bit and misread the big corner route that the guy ran. But other than that, I thought the whole night was good defense. I thought they rose to the occasions. 

“I think it was four for-13 or 14 on third down. Big time there. The running game wasn't there, had a couple sacks, and we made some plays. So I think that's a positive side of what we've shown in the first couple of weeks. But those guys can go. We got to keep it going. It won't just happen. What are we going to do now? That's what's going to count. So we got to come back against the Commanders and get rolling." 

Q: Geno Smith is someone that has the utmost confidence in his arm, as he's willing to throw the ball sometimes in double or triple coverage, but is there a time where you kind of have to pull him to the side and say, "Hey, we can't?" 

Coach Carroll: "Yeah, it felt like that tonight. That's right. It felt like that tonight, and he had a lot of time back there. He had chance to look and see, didn't like what he saw underneath and gave those guys some shots down the field, which he's tremendous at doing basically. 

“So I'm not not supporting some of the choices there. I need to see what happened though. I want to see if he had other options that we could've gotten the ball out of his hands. And so he'll play. He's been a 70% guy for the last four or five years. He'll be right back at it just like he was last week."