Del Rio on Brees’ torching of Raiders’ D: ‘We’ll have much better days’

Sean Smith lived the cornerback nightmare in the Oakland Raiders’ 35-34 victory against the New Orleans Saints.

In his Raider debut, he gave up three receptions for 172 yards, 98 of which came when Brandin Cooks easily left him in his wake for a touchdown. Smith suffered additional embarrassment when he was benched during the game.

But Raiders coach Jack Del Rio believes the cornerback will rebound, along with the rest of the team’s defense.

‘We didn’t take care of business’

“We didn’t take care of business there and obviously against a real cool customer in Drew Brees,” Del Rio told Jim Miller and Pat Kirwan on Movin’ The Chains. “He took full advantage of it. We’ll have much better days.”

The coach was particularly happy with the way Smith handled the adversity.

Smith was ‘a man about it’

“I think he owned it up,” Del Rio said. “He was a man about it and we’re going forward. That’s what we want to do is take accountability and move forward. Keep growing as a team. It’s a whole lot more fun to make those corrections with the W. It’d been a lot harder, I think, on everybody had it not gone that way. So we benefit from that, but we’re certainly putting it behind us.

“And you’ve got to have that mentality as a corner, anyway, because everybody gets beat at some time or another.”

 

Eric Dickerson: Jeff Fisher should be on hot seat

After watching his former team’s 28-0 loss against the San Francisco 49ers Monday night, Hall-of-Fame running back Eric Dickerson thinks Los Angeles Rams coach Jeff Fisher belongs firmly on the hot seat.

“I like Jeff Fisher a lot as a person,” Dickerson told Bruce Murray and Brady Quinn on the SiriusXM Blitz. “I like Jeff, but Jeff is no different than a player. When a player doesn’t perform, what do they do? They cut him. In L.A., they’re not going to stand for mediocrity. They’re not going to go six years and go 7-9, 8-8, 6-10. That’s not going to happen in L.A. You’re not going to have any fans.

‘They lost the discipline factor’

“Jeff hasn’t had a winning season since 2008. You have to win. You have to put a product out there that has discipline. When I looked at the Rams on Monday night, one of the things they lost is the discipline factor. Who’s the leaders on this team? You have to have leaders. Well, they always fall back (to), ‘Well, we’re just a young football team.’ Well, hell, get you some older players. Keep your players on the team. You have to have guys that have some leadership qualities and I think they have a lot of young players and that’s just an excuse to me.

‘That was like a high school offense’

“That seemed like a high school game. That was like a high school offense. I was watching and I was like, ‘My gosh, when are they going to spread this field out a little bit.’ It almost reminded me of when we played. We’d go two tights, but you knew what we were going to do. It wasn’t nothing fancy. We were going to run this football until we break you down. They just did not do anything. I mean, it was just bad.”

 

49ers’ Bethea on raising fist: ‘It’s just to continue the conversation

The San Francisco 49ers are all about football. In case there were any doubts, they went out and proved it with their 28-0 season-opening victory against the Los Angeles Rams Monday night.

As far as the national-anthem protesting trend that Niners backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick began during the preseason, safety Antoine Bethea, who raised a fist as the anthem played at Levi’s Stadium Monday night, says it has not gotten and will not get in the way of what is truly important to the team.

‘As far as the team, it’s no distractions’

“As far as the team, it’s no distractions,” Bethea told Alex Marvez and Bill Polian on Late Hits. “We all know what we’re here for. Whatever the case may be, what you happen to believe, that’s your belief.”

Why did Bethea choose to raise his fist?

‘There’s obviously some issues’

“At the end of the day, it’s just to continue the conversation,” he said. “And that was my stance on it. Look at the news, listen to the news, there’s obviously some issues that hopefully is addressed and by some of those players taking a stance, that’s what we’re doing. We’re just bringing attention to the issues.

“You can have your form of protest any way you want it, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to come to action and make of this change and it’s just not players. It’s everybody. So at the end of the day, just hopefully we can come together and make change.”