After winning 3 of 5 games before Sunday's loss to Miami, the Jets and HC Aaron Glenn spoke about progress, growth and promise building toward a strong finish to the season. The slow start against in the 34-10 loss to the Dolphins, however, left Glenn and his players disappointed after taking a step back.
"I don't feel any different even from getting a chance to watch the tape," Glenn said Monday morning. "Very disappointed on how we coached, on how we played. Totally disappointed on the way that we were trending in a good direction and man, we just hit this roadblock and now as coaches and players we have to get back to this. Get back to it.
"We've got to flush this game, really talk about what our issues were and move into the direction of getting ready to go play against a team [at AFC South-leading Jacksonville] that's playing very, very well right now. But I'm truly confident in the coaches and players getting back to work and flushing this game and moving forward.
Veteran LG John Simpson picked up on Glenn's "flush this game" statement and ran with it.
"I don't want to say forget about it but just turn the page because that's not really going to help us prepare for this week coming up," he said. "So, in a sense you've just got to just wipe the slate clean and just start over, start over brand new. That's kind of how I look at it. And obviously you do want to use that as fuel for the next week, but I feel like if you look too deep into that you get lost in the sauce."
D-Lineman Harrison Phillips: Play of Defense Not Up to Standard
For the second straight week, the Jets' defense allowed the opposition to rack up big numbers in the rush game. Atlanta, led by Bijan Robinson's 142 of his team's 167 total on the ground and on Sunday Miami racked up 239 net rush yards with Jaylen Wright (107) and De'Von Achane (92) leading the way.
"There were a ton of things that came up," DT Harrison Phillips said. "I think, at the end of the day, just a lot of players losing their one-on-one, different players at different times in the game. If you have 50 plays and you mess up 5 of them, you're grading out at 90 percent. That's a pretty damn good game. But if those five times are all 10-yard runs in your gap, it makes it very difficult. So, I think the opponent did a really good job of exploiting those small things. I think they're a very dynamic backfield that was able to capitalize on that, but that many rushing yards is completely unacceptable."
LB Jamien Sherwood: 'We Didn't Uphold the Standard'
Captain and LB Jamien Sherwood joined a pair of accomplished former Jets when he logged his third career game and season-high with 15-plus tackles to lead the defense in Sunday's game against Miami. According to Stats Perform, the only Jets with similar numbers in the past 30 seasons are S Victor Green (3 games) and LB Jonathan Vilma (4).
After the 34-10 loss to the Dolphins, however, Sherwood said the team had been ably prepared by HC Aaron Glenn and his assistants, but the players were not successful in implementing a solid plan.
"I just feel like as a coach, he [Glenn] did what he needed to do this week," Sherwood said after the game. "He gave us the keys to victory, we had a great week of practice, he set us up in the right formation, all our position coaches did what they had to do.
"Us as a team, us as players, when you step in those white lines there's no more coaching at that point. AG can't save us, linebacker coach ... whatever the case may be. We've got to go out there and perform every Sunday, and today we didn't uphold the standard."
Sherwood, in his fifth year with the Green & White, remains at the heart of the defense. His 121 total tackles (53 solo) put him No. 6 overall in the league. In addition, it was his seventh game this season with 10-plus tackles and fourth game with 12-plus. He has taken 100% of the snaps on defense in all but one game (69% vs. Cincinnati in Week 8).
But Miami's fast start (21 unanswered points in the first quarter), he believes, falls on the defense.
"One-hundred percent," he said. "I put it on myself. Communication has to be faster, it has to be better, we have to tackle better to prevent those explosives and that's really the main thing."
