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Head Coach Mike Macdonald Previews Week 10 vs. Raiders · Seahawks Press Pass

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Are you going or are we going?
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: You guys should go.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Well, you are going to be facing a quarterback that
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: has thrown, I think, eight passes in the NFL. Where
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: does preparation start.
• 0:20
  Speaker 4: With this matchup?
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  Speaker 5: Well, I think we have to do a great job
• 0:26
  Speaker 5: of understanding how they operate.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: By situation, um, probably at their core.
• 0:35
  Speaker 5: And then I think, I think, you know, it's, I
• 0:38
  Speaker 5: think it's one of those things where you talk about
• 0:40
  Speaker 5: at the beginning of the season too, where you, you
• 0:42
  Speaker 5: want to use the information available to you, but you can't,
• 0:45
  Speaker 5: I think to, uh, put all your eggs in one
• 0:47
  Speaker 5: basket on what's going to happen or how you think
• 0:50
  Speaker 5: the quarterback's going to play.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Is, wouldn't be wise.
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  Speaker 5: Obviously, obviously we're going to watch, we're going to watch
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: his plays and, um, lean on our information we had
• 1:00
  Speaker 5: from coming out of the draft process, but put our
• 1:03
  Speaker 5: best foot forward. I think really focusing on our details
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: and making sure that we're aligned and on the same
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: page and we're executing at a high level and then
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: go into the game and make the best adjustments we
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: possibly can as the game starts to unfold.
• 1:18
  Speaker 6: Because he's played.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: No real games, do you look back to the Cal
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: and Indiana tapes on how he did things?
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: No.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: Do the preseason games even matter in this case?
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: They do a little bit, but it's kind of do
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: the best you can, you know? I mean, you can't make.
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: I don't want to speak for Clint, but it seems like,
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: I mean, we've been through personnel changes in the middle
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: of the season. You can't make wholesale changes fundamentally and
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: systematically off of what you're doing. I'm sure they're thinking
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: the same thing. They're going to obviously tweak some things,
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: as you do every week, and You try to anticipate
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: some of those things as best you can as the opponent,
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: but you never want to just put all your cards
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: on one thing, so to speak. It does shift our
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: focus in terms of how we're trying to game plan
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: a little bit, but our process really remains the same, honestly.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: How similar is this with Clint being there from what
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: he did last year here? How similar does it look?
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  Speaker 3: There's a lot of parallels. I think, to their credit, they've...
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: They've evolved.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: They're building it around the people that they have, and
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: they're doing it at a high level. So respect how
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: they operate, obviously. And they've got great people and good players,
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: and they're moving the ball and putting up a lot
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: of points.
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: Do you have to guard it all against, like, overthinking it? Like, okay,
• 2:47
  Speaker 6: he knows I think this way.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: For sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure. You get in your
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: own way.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What stands out about Fernando, just his skill set
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: and what you saw of him previously and all of that,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: the kind of quarterback?
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he's a really good player, and he's going to
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: have a great career. You can tell that by the
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: information we had coming out. He's got a great skill set.
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: We'll focus on us and us making sure that we're
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: on our brand of ball and try to apply as
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: much pressure as we can on their offense.
• 3:22
  Speaker 6: We saw Nick on McBride a lot last week, another
• 3:25
  Speaker 6: good tight end obviously this week. What about, I mean,
• 3:27
  Speaker 6: is it just obvious how big and fast he is,
• 3:29
  Speaker 6: or what about Nick makes him particularly good at matching.
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: Up with tight ends?
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I think not all tight ends run the
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: routes equally. They run different route trees, things like that.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: In terms of timing of plays and how they get open,
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: Nick has the ability to, he runs, he can run
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: with anybody as we know, but the ability to.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Stay connected at, like, the top of routes.
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: You know, tight ends that are, you know, the best
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: tight ends are able to use, like, physicality to create separation,
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: and Nick's able to either, you know, kind of fight
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: fire with fire on that front or be able to absorb,
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: we won't call them push-offs, but, you know, I have
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: my own opinion about it, where he can, you know,
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  Speaker 5: absorb some of those tricks of the trade, so to speak,
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  Speaker 5: and still stay connected.
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: How is Drew progressing with his health?
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Drew's making good progress. We have a plan. Similar to
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: last week, we'll go from there. He's not going to
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: take every rep.
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: He's not going to make every throw again, but I
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: think that's just trying to be as prudent as possible
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: through the process to make sure that he's feeling his
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: best on Sunday.
• 4:41
  Speaker 7: What about Charles Cross, Leonard Williams, Chenna Nwosu, Rashid Shaheed,
• 4:45
  Speaker 7: any of those guys.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Expected to practice?
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: We're not going full speed today, so a lot of
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: those guys will have the opportunity to take reps today,
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: and then we'll see tomorrow. Haven't ruled anybody out yet,
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: nor have we ruled anybody in yet. But good news
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: on a lot of those guys.
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: And Quentin Nelson, you mentioned he had his procedure on Monday.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: Just any update on how he's doing from that?
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: No, he's here. He's back in the building and looks good.
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: We were able to get to some things– agreement-wise, that
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: are of the chasing edges.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Caliber, which is music to my ears.
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: So I know he's going to be back sooner than
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: later if it's under his control, and we'll take it
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: really week by week at this point.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Did you feel like you guys were close to getting
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: anything done here at the trade deadline, or was it
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: pretty fast?
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: You all know how John rolls. He's always.
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: kind of doing his thing in terms of being as
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: many things as possible, but nothing really became serious enough
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: for us to have that type of conversation. Look, I
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: love our team. The guys that we have go out
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: from here on out. I'm very optimistic. We have work
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: to do.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: We have room to grow, and I believe that we
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: can and we will.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: When Clint was here last season, was there anything about
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: the way he carried himself or his demeanor that made
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: you believe this guy's going to be a head coach pretty.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: Soon? I really loved working with Clint. He was a
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: great team player.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: I think that mentality is probably an underrated part of
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: being a head coach, of being able to see everything
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: kind of in a 360-degree viewpoint. unselfishly and I was
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: able to remove himself from a lot of situations and
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: do things for the betterment of the team consistently, which I,
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: you know, coming from my perspective, you definitely appreciate, uh,
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: he has a way about him where he can kind
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: of tell, tell you the truth and go through it
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  Speaker 5: on around without sugarcoating it, but also, you know, keeping,
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: you know, keeping, you know, the, the personal emotions out
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: of it as well, which I think, um, gathered respect from,
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: from both, uh, the rest of our coaches and our team.
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: So it's got a lot of, A lot of great characteristics.
• 7:16
  Speaker 8: We heard that he would let his assistants submit plays
• 7:21
  Speaker 8: for possible inclusion in the game plan. It sounds like you,
• 7:24
  Speaker 8: correct me if I'm wrong, but you kind of do
• 7:25
  Speaker 8: something similar with your defensive staff. How common or uncommon
• 7:30
  Speaker 8: is that throughout the NFL?
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: I feel like that's pretty common. I mean, we still
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: do that on offense and we do it on defense.
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: I mean, a lot of stuff we're running is not
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: starting in my head. It's starting in our staff's head
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: and it's already about how we make it come to life.
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: And the reason just, you know, staff dynamics are so
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: important is because now you can make it be connected
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  Speaker 5: and you're not just running like one off plays, you know,
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  Speaker 5: it's all kind of seamless. So that takes those types
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: of conversations and that process to be right.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: But yeah, the staffs that I've.
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: Been on now, we varied in degree sometimes, you know,
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: but I think when, when you're working at your best,
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: everyone's contributing and everyone feels like they have a say
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  Speaker 5: in what we're doing and how we're doing it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: And I think that's important.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: On special teams, the Raiders are really good at getting
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: kickoff return yards. What have you seen as teams have
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: adjusted to the dynamic kickoff and kind of how that's
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: changed over the last year?
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there's less explosive returns, I think, as we're getting
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: more used to the play. I don't know if Jay
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: would agree with me on this, but I think the
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: rule about having another offer turner, I think that– I'm
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: eager to see what the stats are at the end
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: of the season in terms of how, what that let
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: us do in terms of safety. It feels like it's
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: doing a good, it feels like it's being effective. I don't,
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: I don't have the data to back that up, but, uh,
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: it's a good play. I think, I think, I think
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  Speaker 5: it's been evolving at a, probably a higher rate than, um,
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: you might imagine, but, uh, it's been an exciting play.
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: I think what, what, you know, so kudos to all
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: the people involved that get it back in the game. And, um,
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  Speaker 5: I think it's an exciting play, and it's definitely a
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: kind of high leverage type of play. I mean, there
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: might not be as explosive plays, but, you know, there's
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: a huge difference now if you can get a kick
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: stopped inside a 25-yard line versus a touchback or coming
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: out past the 40. I mean, we're talking almost like
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: a point, you know, if you can get a stop,
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: which is great.
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: What did you like about Jadarian in.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: That role last week?
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I thought JD looked good. Something that we'll still
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: continue to look at. He had that skill set coming
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: out of college and having Zach becoming healthier at a halfback.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Definitely helps us be able to do that. He has vision.
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  Speaker 3: He has burst.
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  Speaker 5: It's exciting. I think he's going to really help us.
• 10:00
  Speaker 7: There's a lot of talk about rush and coverage working
• 10:04
  Speaker 7: together in the pass game. What about against the run?
• 10:08
  Speaker 7: How do the front structures and coverage structures, how do
• 10:11
  Speaker 7: you come to your philosophy on that?
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: That's a good question. How do we come to it?
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  Speaker 5: I think it starts with the type of blocks that
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: you think that you're going to get and who's playing
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: those blocks and how many double team combinations you're willing
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: to live with, how many singles you're trying to create.
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: That's the starting point. And then the coverage behind it,
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: I think it starts with your core competencies and what
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: you hang your hat on. And then obviously you're going
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: to build it around how you feel like you're being
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: attacked and what the other team does well. In addition
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: to that, obviously your past responsibility is to take you
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: to your run fit and vice versa.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: So if that's at odds as a coach, that's stuff
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: that you have.
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: To be really vigilant about to make sure your guys aren't,
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: you know, I got this gap, I got that guy.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: That's a problem.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: You know, I need to be, you know. Very articulate.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: When Clint left for the Raiders, how big was it
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: for you and the whole thing you were trying to
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: do on offense to keep John Bennett? And how much
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: of a challenge was it?
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Well, it was very important.
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: I think we wanted to keep as many of our
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: offensive staff as we possibly could.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: JB was right there with the rest of the guys.
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: Obviously, there's some dynamics that go down when something like
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: that happens that uh, inevitable to some degree. Um, you know,
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: but like my message to our, our coaches is like, Hey, we, we,
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: we hired you to be Seahawks, man. Like we want
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: you to be, we want you to be Seahawks. So
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: I know the staff dynamic is going to change, but, um,
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: I think everyone did, did a great job and, and, uh,
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: you could feel that we were building a cool thing
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: on our staff, even though we were going to, you know,
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: lose at least Clint, but, um, J.B.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Does an awesome job. He really, really does.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, we're on record with that, but obviously it's
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: really important to try to keep him.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: I think J.B.
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: Wanted to be here, you know, which is a positive,
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: but obviously you want to be able to work it
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: out where it's best for everybody as well.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: He said a couple days before the Super Bowl, let
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: me see you off, damn it, I'm staying. Yeah, it's awesome.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Did you have the assurance, because you knew Clem was leaving,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: did you have that assurance even before that game that
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: he was not going anywhere?
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: I was confident he was. I mean, if people don't
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: want to be here, we're not going to force them
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: to be here. You know, we want, you know, reference
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: the famous Mike T quote, but like, we want, we
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: want guys that want to be here. And if they
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: do them, we want to work, make it work where it's,
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: they're excited to be here too. And we feel like
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: we have great opportunities for our coaches to do what
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: they do.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: And also opportunities to grow.
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: You know, you can't, I think, I think the challenge
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: I found was like, Hey, we only have X amount
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: of pie. We only have X amount of responsibilities. How
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: do you feel like you can best reward people for
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: doing a great job while also not having to buy
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: another pie, you know? At some point, you're going to
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: run out of pie, and someone's going to feel like
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: they need more pie, and that's a challenge.
• 13:32
  Speaker 7: We're kind of at a point where teams are– a
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: lot of teams on offense have been moving to under
• 13:36
  Speaker 7: center more this season, but then defenses seem to be
• 13:38
  Speaker 7: blitzing teams out of under center. You know– How does that,
• 13:43
  Speaker 7: how's that evolved for you guys defensively and offensively as
• 13:46
  Speaker 7: that's been going on?
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: Well, I think, I think we're referenced Jen's question at
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: the beginning of the season.
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: I think we've kind of declared what the way these
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: offenses are as the season has gone along.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: And so I.
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: Think, I think you have to do a great job
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: on your side of the ball of understanding how teams
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: are attacking you and, and your operation and the things
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: that you do well. And if you're able to counter
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: those things and able to, kind of plug those holes
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: from week to week, then, you know, to me, that's,
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: that's how you solve. Those are the problems that you
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: want to be able to solve and be able to
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: stack those solutions over time. And, and then now you're
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: going to, you're going to force teams to not feel
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: like they have this schematic advantage over you. So I
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: really feel like it's a team to team thing and
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: based off how you operate and understand, be paying attention
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: to the things that the other side is calling against you. And, um,
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: being able to kind of attack those like foundational foundational
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: type of questions. So a lot of time and resources
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: that go into a play call, you know, if you,
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: if you think of it through that lens and you,
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: you understand like things are getting called for a reason
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: and you can, you can kind of apply a reason on,
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: on what you're onto, why you're seeing what you're seeing.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: You've coached in games against people you coach with like
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: in Baltimore and things like that a lot, or I
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: think maybe a few times or guys.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: I was just wondering it, when you do face somebody who's,
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: you know really well, do you think those games turn
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: out a lot differently than when you face somebody that
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: you don't know anything about or?
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting. I actually think it goes probably.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: It's probably, feels like a divisional game. Like it feels
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: like the first divisional game of the season where it's like,
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: we kind of know each other, but we also know
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: that we're different.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: And so that makes sense where.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: It's not, it's not the same, but it's not, there's
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: also like a familiarity, you know, but it's all, but
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: you also don't have like the foundational understanding of what
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: they already decided to do. So then you have the
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: opportunity to react. That's, that's probably the best, best comparison
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: I can make.
• 15:59
  Speaker 7: There's always talk about trying to involve other guys other
• 16:03
  Speaker 7: than JSN on the passing side. On the flip side,
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: there's a lot of teams that wish their best right
• 16:08
  Speaker 7: receiver was getting the ball as much as JSN is
• 16:10
  Speaker 7: able to still get the ball. So how do you
• 16:13
  Speaker 7: balance making sure you're getting the ball to your best
• 16:16
  Speaker 7: player and getting other guys involved? How do you prioritize?
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: I think it's both. I think it's like a both-and
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: thing where.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: I think it's that simple.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: It's... we want to maximize the amount of ways that
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: we can get jacked the ball. And we also want
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: to make our offense as, as effective and as potent
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: as we possibly can utilizing the people that we have. So, uh,
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: there's a challenge there, you know, in terms of how
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: we build it. Also a challenge to other guys to, um,
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: making sure that when their numbers called that they can,
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: they can, uh, make the play as well. And I
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: feel like we have those guys. I feel like there's
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: more opportunities that we can capitalize on. And I think, uh,
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: I think that'll make us go even further.