Raiders DB Coach Joe Woods Mastering Interceptions

Sat, Aug 8, 2026

Video Transcript

How do you turn that tight coverage into interceptions and turnovers?

So you gotta make plays and when they're available for you, but the biggest thing for us is always playing your technique, because if you play your technique, then, uh, the turnovers will come.

You want guys to be great cover guys, guys that will be physical, but also guys that take away the ball.

That's the biggest step in terms of winning games.

I'm all about, you know, getting on the body just in terms of being tight whenever we play press.

Um, he has that skill set.

He has that same type of trait, but there's some really good things that he's doing.

And that's a big thing I've been pressing him with because the room's so young, they all look to him for leadership, so he's doing a lot of things that maybe you guys don't see on the field behind closed doors to try to lead them.

Um, and again, you know.

I think the thing with Darren, many people forget is that he really didn't play that much DB in college.

Um, you know, you have guys that played DEB from when they're playing Little League to, to high school to college, and he was a receiver.

So a lot of the nuances of the game for him was something that he was learning last year.

So now he's a lot more comfortable.

There's still things he's working, working on, but he, I, I feel like he's really.

It's just the understanding of the game like we talk a lot about increasing that process just in terms of information that the offense provides you down the distance situations like when to be more aggressive, you know, when you have to back off.

I feel like all those things he, he's more comfortable with and he understands a little bit.

I said, the, the number one stat in terms of winning games is taking away the football.

So we're gonna be aggressive with coverage, you know, we may get a few penalties here and there, but you have to challenge people in order to get the ball, and I, I think we're heading that direction.

We just got to come down and finish first.

Uh, this, I, I think first and foremost with anything you do, any walk of life, it's your mindset.

And I think for us it's confidence, you know, we have to have the, the mindset that we go out there that we can cover anybody.

We're gonna be covering the best athletes on the opponent's team, so we gotta have that confidence that.