Broncos 29, Raiders 19
Q. Any update on Gardner Minshew? Secondly, I felt like you guys threw the kitchen sink at Bo Nix today with a lot of pressures but he stood back there and made some plays. What were your thoughts on the quarterback for the Denver Broncos?
ANTONIO PIERCE: Yeah, with minute shoe, left shoulder there. We'll know more, but it doesn't look good. Bo Nix is a pretty good football player. It showed up again today. He made some plays, made the throws they needed to, bought time with his legs, backing up, avoiding pressure. We got to him early, I thought did a good job of trying to disrupt him. The mindset was to be aggressive, and I thought we did do that, but when they had to make a play, he made plays for them.
Q. You seemed to get the running game going today a little bit, but do you think you should have got it going a little more? Would you want to see more carries?
ANTONIO PIERCE: Of course. I don't want to see the ball thrown 40 times. I've said that like a thousand times, but that's been kind of our MO. Actually it was 53 today.
Q. I remember talking to you I think it was at either the combine or the owners' meeting about Bo Nix, and you had mentioned this is a guy who played a lot of football and won a lot of football games. What was it that you had seen in Bo Nix at that point?
ANTONIO PIERCE: Yeah, winner, mature. Stage, the moment is not too big for him, loves to compete. He doesn't flinch. We were hitting him, trying to get after him. I didn't see a rattled guy. You could tell when they were off offensively he did a good job, just called a time-out. Never created negative plays for his team. Never really put them in bad situations for the most part.
You saw that in college, and to me I think there's a lot to say when a quarterback plays as long as he did in college and every year won, and was always productive, leader. Good football player.
Q. I noticed you said that Gardner's left shoulder injury doesn't look good at this point, but Aidan O'Connell got his eligibility to come off IR next week. Are you hopeful he might be able to suit up this week?
ANTONIO PIERCE: Yeah, we're going to need somebody. We're running out of quarterbacks too, now. We'll see what happens tomorrow, but obviously it looks like he's getting better. He threw a little bit in practice this week. Obviously we've got a short week, play on Friday, travel on Thursday, so we have to make that decision very quickly.
Q. I know there's no silver linings in a loss, but Tyree continues to stack up good play and growth. Would you talk about what you saw from him today, please?
ANTONIO PIERCE: Tyree Wilson? I thought another productive day. Obviously he had a sack early in the game. Pretty good against the run. I'm just looking at it from field level. But just progressive, each and every week, just processing, getting better, doing what he needs to do. We just need more of those plays, not just from Tyree, not just from Max but from all 11.
Q. You guys were outscored 20-6 in the second half. What are your takeaways from watching the second half?
ANTONIO PIERCE: Yeah, I think, again, turnover right there, sudden change, we've got to do a better job on defense, we gave up a touchdown, then obviously you saw the score there. Then just 3rd down defense in the second half wasn't good enough.
Q. Obviously you're going to want to have a couple of healthy quarterbacks, but have you seen enough from Desmond Ritter in this short period of time?
ANTONIO PIERCE: No, not to cut you off, but no. It's not enough reps. When Gardner was in there, you give him all the reps. You do some stuff, like 7-on-7, certain periods we would, but to sit there and say he's seen enough, no. He has film. He's played in this league, and obviously today was tough, right, sitting on the bench the last 55 minutes and now you're thrown in the ballgame, and he did the best he could, he fought, put us down in position obviously to try to score a touchdown at the end of the game.
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