Opening Comments: ML: "Looking forward to the Raiders, their defense presents a challenge to our offense with big, physical guys up front. I think they do an excellent job in their coverage schemes and so forth. We've got to do a great job in being very disciplined and stay on our plan. On offense, they've got some great speed and skill position guys. Obviously they're not being as productive as they'd like. A couple of weeks ago when they beat the stuffing out of Philadelphia, they got after them physically, they got after them in every way. That's important. I think that's a challenge for our guys. We know this is a football team that's a lot a better than what their record says at this point. We've got to go take care of business. They've had certain distractions around them for most of the year and we've got to not let their issues become our issues, and we've got to go play. I think that's very important as we go out there."
Q: Have you ever had a situation where you fly out the day before the game on a west coast trip instead of two days before?ML: "I have not, but that's the way I've decided to do it. A lot of teams do it this way, there's less time away. You're supposed have less time out of your bed, your environment. We're basically going to play it like a 4 p.m. (ET) game, like we've had many times this year. So we'll be out there in plenty of time on Saturday morning and do our thing the way we do it. We'll just make it a nice, tight, business trip. We'll try it this way."
Q: Do you have to remind your players not to look past the record of a struggling team like Oakland?ML: "I don't know that they listen to anybody, but we've got to go. We've watched the tape, and we've got to do our thing and execute our game plan. It doesn't matter who you're playing against, or what they're going to play against, it's a guy who is getting paid just like they are. You've got to respect that and respond to that. This is a football team, as I just said a couple of minutes ago, that just beat the stuffing out of Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago when they were riding pretty high. So we've got to play football the way we know how to play it."
Q: Can you talk about the play of Morgan Trent and David Jones as the backup corners?ML: "They've done a good job of filling in when they've had the opportunity to. Obviously, David played a lot of football last year for us, and Morgan has been playing a lot this year for us. I think he keeps getting better in some of the things we ask him to do on third down. He's learning, he's growing. Obviously for a rookie to come in and do that, it's a tough thing because there's a lot of learning. There's the intellectual part of the game and the nuances of playing that spot. I think the coaches have done a nice job with him, and Zim (defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer) has his way of critiquing him in that way. I think really the players on the field, Chris Crocker and those guys, have done a really good job of helping him continue to grow in that spot."
Q: Is Cedric Benson going to practice?ML: "He won't practice today."
