What Josh McDaniels Told Raiders After Week 6 Win Over Patriots

The jury still is out on Josh McDaniels as an NFL head coach, but he continues to find success against his mentor.

With the Raiders’ 21-17 win over the Patriots at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday, McDaniels improved to 3-0 in his career against Bill Belichick. But far more importantly for Las Vegas, the Week 6 triumph boosted its record to .500 after a 1-3 start to the season.

It wasn’t a pretty victory for the Silver and Black by any means, but as McDaniels explained to his team after the game, he wants the focus to only be on the end result.

“Hey, we won,” McDaniels said, per a team-provided video. “Listen, don’t you dare apologize for victories in this league. You hear me? OK, they’re (expletive) hard to come by and we’ve already been in some the other way with us on the losing end of a close one, too. So, we don’t give any fish back here. You with me on this? Again, I’m damn proud of the effort. I’m damn proud of the way we fight. We know we have to clean some things up so we can win and not take years off my life. You hear me on this?

“We got to fix some things here so that we can make life easier on all of us. That’s really the thing, but you should enjoy it. We’re 3-3, we clawed back. We can’t give any back. We can’t give any back, all right? Our mindset and our attitude is work every day, put it in, prepare hard, get ready for the next team and then go give everything we (expletive) got. We got to keep doing that.”

The Raiders now have a chance to go on a little run. Three of Las Vegas’ next four games are against teams that will enter Week 7 with a .500 record or worse, including matchups with a pair of one-win teams (Chicago Bears, New York Giants).

As for the Patriots, they might have to wait until November to land their second win of the season. It probably isn’t coming in either of the next two weeks when New England battles the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins.