Hue Jackson: “I Am Pissed Off. I Don’t Like Losing. And Three In A Row? That’s Starting That Slide.”

It was just three weeks ago that the Oakland Raiders were sitting pretty in the AFC West with a record of 7-4. The trade for Carson Palmer initially looked to be paying some dividends for the head coach that pushed so hard for the player that he thought could bring his team to the promised land. Well, everything has come crashing down for “Da Raiders” this past month. Oakland has dropped three straight games, starting with back-to-back embarrassing blow out losses to the Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers. What did Hue Jackson’s crew do for an encore this past week? They merely blew a 27-14 lead with 7:47 remaining to the Detroit Lions after Matthew Stafford led a 98-yard scoring drive that helped the Lions take a two-game lead in the NFC wild-card race with 28-27 victory over the Raiders. Hue Jackson is steamed about the Raiders three game losing streak and believes his team must look at the next opportunity to take back the AFC West crown against the Kansas City Chiefs this weekend.

Hue Jackson joinedKNBR in San Francisco with Murph and Macto discuss the loss to the Detroit Lions still stinging at this point of the week, the Raiders lack of discipline and penalty issues, the disappointment of being a head coach who is .500 right now, the impact of Michael Bush filling in for Darren McFadden and being pissed off this week after losing three games in a row.

Is there still a sting from that loss against the Detroit Lions? As a head coach how much time do you give yourself to recover from it?

“You gotta look at it yesterday and you gotta move forward. We got a big game this week against Kansas City regardless of what the outcome was of that game. You got a very important game against Kansas City and you gotta get your team ready to play.”

How can you improve your team with discipline and cut down on the penalties?

“Well you just keep working at it. It’s really interesting because in the first half when we were playing pretty decently and consistently I think we had 3 at halftime. Then all of a sudden in the second half when things start to unravel late in the game we end up with 7. To me I’m trying to see if there is a correlation between something that leads to all of a sudden not finishing and then all of a sudden here comes the penalties. Here it all comes. That is something that to me that I continue to look into. There’s not been a pattern yet, but I have to continue to look and see where is this coming from? In the first half if you could play that consistently and not have a lot of infractions, but then in the second half when you need it the most to go finish a game. Those things show up. To me that is something you definitely got to look at.”

Have you told your players that you are disappointed to be a .500 head coach at 7-7 this season?

“Absolutely. We’ve lost three games in a row. Three weeks ago we were 7-4 and atop the AFC West. We lost two very tough games on the road in Miami where we didn’t play as well and Green Bay where we didn’t play as well. I think our guys fought hard…really hard early. I think down the stretch we weren’t consistent enough to finish this game and get it done, so that’s the truth. I’m 7-7. I’m an average head coach right now and that is the reality of it and we’re an average football team, but we can change that by how we play this week if we go to Kansas City and go win a football game.”

Talk about the job Michael Bush had done filling in for Darren McFadden?

“I think Mike is a tremendous competitor. A great person. A hard worker, who will do anything that is asked of him and he has. He has done an outstanding job. I thought he ran extremely hard and well in this past game. There were some tough yards in there – that he was slamming that ball up in there trying to get them and gave our offense a chance to kind of be a little dynamic this past week. He’s done a tremendous job and he comes to each game every week ready to play and he’ll do the same thing this weekend.”

Are you breathing extra fire this week after losing three straight games?

“You better know I am. One: I am pissed off. I am just being very honest with you because I am tired of losing. I don’t like losing. And three in a row? That’s starting that slide. We gotta get off this slide. This is not who we want to be and we had a chance, but we didn’t close out this last week. We get another opportunity at this thing and that’s what this is all about. Here comes the next opportunity. We can’t keep talking about the one that just passed because we can’t get it back, so we gotta go play this one as well as we can and put ourselves in position to win a game. “