San Diego Chargers Head Coach Mike McCoy
On the health of WR Malcolm Floyd:
COACH McCOY: "First off, I'd like to make a comment on WR Malcolm [Floyd], he's doing fine. All the tests right now look good, so it was great for the organization to go out and get a win for Malcolm. So I'll leave it at that, and we'll update you as time goes on."
On today's game:
COACH McCOY: "Great win for the organization. You know coming on the road, we knew we had a tough test. The coaches put in a great game plan for how we wanted to execute it; offense, defense, and special teams…and the players went out and executed the way it's going to be. We knew there would be some big plays offensively, that's the way they play the game, but the players kept on playing. We had the right mindset coming in here on the road. It was about believing in the plan, and when the game was on the line, we knew that someone was going to make a plan, and there was a number of guys that did that all game long. That's what their job is to do…keep fighting for 60-minutes, and great things happen when you do all of those things, so I'm very pleased with the game but we have a long ways to go. It's just one [game]."
On the offensive drives and clock management:
COACH McCOY: "I think it was important, that was one of the keys to the game. You have to play complementary football, and when you play a team like that, that plays with the tempo they do…whether it's offense, or on special teams, getting a turnover, doing something to create a possession for us, the offense maintaining drives, not going 3-and out, avoiding the 7, 10, 12 whatever plays it is to keep the defense off the field, and I think they did a good job of that. I think [Offensive Coordinator] Ken Whisenhunt called a phenomenal game offensively."
On the play of QB Philip Rivers:
COACH McCOY: "Well I think he deserves a lot of credit for buying in from the very first day we all came on board together of understanding there is going to be change, we're going to change the system, from day 1 he bought in to what we're doing. He wanted to learn…it might reenergize him a little bit, you know he's had a lot of success up to this point and time, but I think he really bought in and that's the key. And we've been telling you since the day we got here, that he's going to have a great year. These are the types of games you expect great players to have. It's not a shock to our system at all what he did out there."
On the play of WR Eddie Royal:
COACH McCOY: "Well I think he's making the most of every opportunity he gets. You know having worked with him in Denver, we're putting him in a situation to make plays and that's what his job is to do. You know he's done a nice job the past couple weeks of making the big plays when the game's on the line, or conversion here and there, winning versus one-on-one [coverage]…the offensive line, you know they deserve a lot of credit for the success we had today also. You know everyone, they're coming together, that's the key, but this is one game, we're moving forward…how quickly can we improve for next week?"
On getting a win on the road in a short week:
COACH McCOY: "Well sometimes that's the best thing for you is a short week. You know you have a tough loss, give Houston [Texans] all the credit in the world for what they did, coming back from when they were down, and it was tough on us, but it says a lot about the character of the type of players we have here and the coaching staff…the organization and what we want to get done here. The players had a great meeting. They had the Tuesday off, they came in Wednesday, I kind of had a brief outline of what I thought of the game, things were we need to improve and talked about some key coaching points and how quickly we can improve. They bought into the plan this week and we moved on. You got to have a short memory in this business. You're only guaranteed every weekend; you have to play every play like it's your last play going out there and see what happens. It's a long season. The key thing is that you get better every week and that's what we're stressing to the players, I think they did a heck of a job today. We improved, but we'll get on the plane going home…we'll watch the film tomorrow as a staff and we'll talk with the team later in the afternoon and say hey, there's some areas to improve. Our goal in this league is to get better every week and to take it one week at a time and see what happens."
On finishing the game:
COACH McCOY: "You have to have the right mindset in game, you've got to believe and you've got to finish. We talked about it last week, we didn't finish the game. We made too many mistakes, today we finished, and that's why you win football games in this league, it's hard. There are not any easy ones…there are no guarantees on any Sunday that you are going to go in there and walk over a team. The parity is too good, but when you believe in what you're doing, and the coaches put the plan together and you execute the plan…if something's not there, Philip [Rivers] will get you a play. Today we were calling defense and running it, we weren't checking a lot of things. On offense Philip got us in some great situations, getting out of a play and getting us into a better play, and he deserves all the credit in the world for what he did today."
On the RB Ryan Mathews fumble:
COACH McCOY: "Well I think the way we played the game from that point on, the hurry up and certain things, we put certain guys in there, we knew we had the mismatches on certain plays, and he made a mistake, he'll move on. He's got to correct the problem. I told him before you're going to play, you're going to make a mistake, Philip [Rivers] had a mistake before…you just keep going, don't worry about the last play. There's going to be a bad call, I'll make a poor decision somewhere, do something, keep going. The future is now, just keep playing, and that's why we won the game. We didn't say 'oh here we go; we just said we're going to find a way to win the game and that's what we did."
On K Nick Novak:
COACH McCOY: "Well that's the opportunity you want. The game is on the line, just like the offense went down the field and got us into field goal position, and then you get an opportunity to win, and he did his job…exactly what you want the guy to do."
