Chargers
Chargers WR Ladd McConkey described how the unit went from trying to figure out who they were into a position of strength.
“Last year we had some growing pains as a whole from top to bottom,” McConkey said, via ESPN. “Just trying to match, trying to figure out our roles, figure out who we’re going to be. And now I feel like we’ve kind of homed in on that. We’re all playing more confident, we’re having fun.”
McConkey added that he believes that the team has a complete room and is happy where they’re at.
“[The vibe of the WR group has] been really good,” McConkey said. “It’s been better than I thought, honestly.”
Chiefs
The Chiefs are in unknown territory at 0-2, marking the first winless start to the season in QB Patrick Mahomes‘ career through the opening two weeks of the season. Mahomes said they are entering Week 3 with a heightened sense of urgency.
“Obviously, being 0-2, there’s more urgency than even last week, and I feel like we were very urgent last week,” Mahomes said, via ProFootballTalk. “Definitely new territory as far as being 0-2, but knowing that we got the guys for it — we have the mindset of going out there and being even better. In my eyes, it looks like what an opportunity — what an opportunity to prove who we are as the Kansas City Chiefs. Coming back from 0-2 and trying to build up to win a big football game on Sunday Night Football and try and get our season going in the right direction from there.”
Mahomes still has faith that they will be able to turn things around, given the quality of talent around their locker room.
“I think it’s just the people that we have in the locker room,” Mahomes said. “Even though we have never been 0-2, we’ve had stretches where we’ve lost big games kind of consecutively, and guys have responded. It’s about the character of the guys in the locker room more than it is the play on the football field, and I think that we have the guys that are going to continue to work. They’re not going to let this push them down, they’re going to use it if anything as motivation to be even better. I think that gives me [the] most faith, and then the coaches that we have, they’ll continue to push to be even better. We’ll have a great week of practice this week and know we’re going to have to play our best football to win a game against a good football team in the Giants.”
Raiders
Raiders QB Geno Smith said his Monday night performance was a hard film study but he knows he’ll use it to make himself better.
“It was tough to watch,” Smith said, via Raiders Wire. “Obviously (there’s) a lot of things that I wish we’d have done better, I would’ve done better personally. But, like I said, you can never just flush that. You got to learn from it and that’s what I did. I watched it over ten times and just tried to figure out what did I need to do to be better. A lot of things that were obvious — being more accurate, taking what they give me, not being so aggressive. We had chances at the end of the game which I usually do well at and we didn’t get it done. A lot to learn from and a lot that we’ll get better from.”
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