With a short week of practice after a big win on Monday evening, the Oakland Raiders are looking forward to their matchup in week two against the Buffalo Bills, a team coming off a big win of their own. With the final preparations underway for the game, head coach Hue Jackson and defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan met with the media and briefly discussed the matchup.
Q: That's a pretty long list [referring to injuries]. Are you worried?
Coach Jackson: No, I'm not. We're [going to] get on the plane and go play a game at Buffalo and we're going to be ready to play.
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Q: Who's going to return kicks?
Coach Jackson: I'll let you know that when I make that decision. I haven't made that decision yet.
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Q: Final thoughts on the Bills.
Coach Jackson: Let's go. Let's go. It's a big football game for us. I'm very excited about it. Our team is very excited about it. We have some traveling to do right now. We have to handle that the right way because as you travel you have to prepare and that's something I talked to our team about. We'll get prepared. That's what it is. This process is ongoing to and through the game, but we'll be ready to play.
Go get 'em, Raiders. A 2-0 start to the season would be huge for the franchise, and with the Jets and Patriots coming to Oakland the next two weeks, the team could really use the momentum against two tough, potential playoff teams.
Q: What does Buffalo like to do on offense, coach?
Bresnahan: They really have a bunch of things they do. They don't line up as a traditional offense does and just run a couple things that they get very good at. They spread you out and they try to keep you on your heels and try to set the tempo for the game. So, we've go to respond to that, and we feel like we have a good plan. Like I said last week, I'm excited to go out and see where our guys are at and see if we can again, build on the foundation we laid last week, and improve in the areas we need to improve in, and that was the pass coverage.
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Q: Going 8-9 deep in the defensive line, what does that allow you to do scheme wise?
Bresnahan: It's not the scheme, its keeping it fresh. You see what happens towards the end of the game, you wear them down. The second half we wore them down, in my opinion, on the offensive line, and that helped to dictate the tempo of the game, and helped us get to Orton the entire game. Now if we clean up some of our coverage aspects, we have something special that we can build on, as long as we build on the foundation.
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Q: Is it a plus, Chuck, the way that Buffalo handled Kansas City, in terms of guarding against overconfidence that they dropped 41 points on the Chiefs?
Bresnahan: It is to a degree because I think its an eye opener to everybody around the league, but at the same time, I'm one that preaches in our meetings and on the practice fields, I don't concern myself with what they do. I concern myself with what we do and how we handle the opponent. If we concern ourselves with everything they are doing, we're not going to focus on what we need to do to be successful within our defense. I want to dictate the tempo, I want our guys executing our defense based on our knowledge and expertise of what were doing rather than try to react to something they do and not being totally confident and aggressive. I'm more concerned about us.
The Bills might have been the most impressive team in the NFL last week -- albeit against a team depleted with injuries -- and their confidence will be as high as it has been in years. Oakland will need to limit mistakes against Fitzpatrick and Buffalo's offense and try to get an early lead. The fans will likely be rowdy and boisterous as the game begins and the last thing coaches Jackson and Bresnahan want to deal with is an early deficit. This is not a team built to exactly score a lot of points in a short amount of time.
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