Transcript of Jets head coach Rex Ryan's Monday news conference:
There were some great things in that game when you watch that tape. 318 rushing yards — a franchise record by Thomas Jones — averaged 9½ yards a carry. Those were some unbelievable statistics. We said it yesterday about the fact that we had six interceptions during the game and yet we were still actually in a position to actually win the game is remarkable.
The mistakes and the penalties, especially the presnap penalties and we had some selfish penalties, those are things that really irk me. Obviously if you throw that many interceptions, you're not going to win, no matter what the level. We've got to look at it. We have a plan moving forward. We've just got to learn from this past game and move on.
On if his confidence in Mark Sanchez has changed at all…
No. I just think we've got to do a great job at looking at what we are asking this young man to do. Do we need to cut things back? Are there things that we could do to put on somebody else's plate to take some things off his plate? I have a lot of confidence in Mark and that's based on how we performed in training camp, how we performed in the preseason games, and really, up until that point the regular season. The New Orleans game might have been, up until this game, his worst game as a pro. He bounced back, had his best game against Miami, on a Monday night, in a hostile environment, so we got the right guy.
We've just got to really ask ourselves, why? Are there things that we can do to help him and let him understand that sometimes the pride factor that "Hey, I can get this ball in" or always trying to do it himself, he doesn't need to do that. We say it all the time, just be part of the solution. You don't have to be the solution yourself. We are running the ball as effectively as men run in this league for I don't know how long. For what, 318 yards rushing, average eight yards per carry? There's that running game we are talking about. The fact that when we added Braylon Edwards how that coverage was going to change, I think we saw it. We saw that the running game would improve when we got less people down there.
Unfortunately our passing game — always give and take there. The Bills the week before only gave up two completions, so it wasn't like that they can't play pass defense. The Bills are good at pass defense. They can rush the passer, as well. Clearly, you're not going to win a game when you throw that many interceptions.
On if they will scale down Sanchez's game plan and make him have less protection call at the line…
All those things. You've got to look at everything. We are still going to be true to ourselves offensively, but is there something that we can help him with? That's the challenge that we have going forward with our offensive staff, who I think is a great staff. I think we have the right group to get the most out of Mark. Was it just the play of Mark Sanchez that got us beat? No. We have to realize that this isn't a guy that's played 20 years in the league.
Whatever it is, he's got an unbelievable amount of talent. We all see it. We know what he's going to be in the future, but we've got to be smart with him. I remember when Ben Roethlisberger, who is a talented guy, also. Pittsburgh was smart what they did and they won a ton of games. I think we can still win a ton of games, but the only thing we are worried about now is one game, win one game per week. That's all we need to look at and then we will add them up at the end of the year.
On Sanchez's demeanor today…
He's resilient. He's going to bounce back from this. I believe that. He's mad at himself because he thinks he let his team down. This team cares about each other and they don't want to see him suffer. Could he have played better? Absolutely. There's a lot of guys that could have played better. When he makes a mistake, they are obviously much more glaring and he has to realize that sometimes it's OK to take the incompletion. You don't have to try to force a ball in there and try to complete every pass. If it's not there, get rid of it.
On Kris Jenkins' injury…
He's going to go on IR. He's got an ACL.
On how tough the loss of Jenkins is…
That's hard. It's going to be hard to replace Kris. There's not many Kris Jenkins' playing in this league. Obviously, his impact is going to be felt. I have a lot of confidence in the guys we have behind him, Sione [Pouha] and Mike DeVito. We'll add Howard Green back. I have confidence in these guys, but to think that they are going to come in and play like Kris, that's not realistic. We are all going to have to step up our game to make up for his loss.
On how the loss of Jenkins affects the philosophy of the defense…
You look at the way offenses are playing us now, almost content on just whatever it is to keep out of these third-and-longer situations and we are going to have to stop the run more so now more than ever. Guys are just going to have to really step up and play. Play with great technique. I think we have got to have a good rotation, keep guys fresh because it's hard to play the run down after down and then rush the passer. We have got to do a great job with our rotation and guys have to play with great pad level and believe in their techniques and work to get better every day.
On if they should have thrown passes to David Clowney…
Certainly looking back on it, you're probably right. We probably need to.
On if James Ihedigbo's penalty was a selfish penalty…
I don't want to discuss specific guys. I think you can figure it out.
On if he will pull Sanchez if it is for the best of the team…
Well, yeah. It's just like Lito had a quad and we chose to pull him out. If it's best for the team, we are going to do it. We needed one drive to win that game and I had confidence that he can lead that drive. You really look, in overtime we did have it down there and unfortunately, we did have another penalty, which made that field goal a lot longer than it should have been. I felt that he still gave us the best opportunity to win.
On how to keep the morale of the team high…
We have a lot of good players on this team and we are not backing down. We are stepping up and that's the way it's got to be. Each week it's win one game a week and that's not asking too much. That's where our entire focus is going to be. Not looking behind us, not looking too far ahead. We are looking about the present. Right now we are going to play Oakland and our entire focus and everything is going to be on just accomplishing that mission, not getting ahead of ourselves.
On if they should have run the ball more…
I think we would have had we not backed ourselves up with some presnap penalties. We had enough presnap penalties to last for a while. Earlier in the season we had gone through that phase. I thought we were out of that. Unfortunately we had a couple and we backed ourselves up and we had way too many penalties. We had, I don't know, five or six penalties in the overtime. That's absolutely ridiculous.
You never want penalties, but the focus needs to be tighter. What's the mission for the team? It's not about you individually. We have even addressed that offensively. We are a very multiple offense, but we are looking at everything. We have officials out here every day for practice. If you do it on the practice field, you'll do it on the game field and we have to tighten everything down and keep that focus on the job at hand. I think we'll get it corrected.
On how they will cut down on some of the penalties…
I think we are going to be true to ourselves. That's part of who we are. We are a hard team to prepare for. That's certainly a possibility on limiting some of those things.
On Ihedigbo saying he didn't throw a punch…
I think there was some jostling there, but it looked to me on the film that he had thrown a punch, as well.
On how he will handle Ihedigbo's penalty…
I guess we'll see going forward.
On if Marques Murrell also threw a punch….
We are not going to justify anything like that. Things happen on the field, but at that time, you've got to be kidding me. There are some penalties that you don't need to take and not just focusing on Ihedigbo, because he's been a tremendous player for us, too. You've got to be smart. We've got to ask ourselves why an individual is doing this as well. We look at everything. We evaluate everything, just like you do every week. Certainly that's not acceptable.
On what he means when he says "We'll see going forward"….
You guys will see. I know what I'm going to do.
On if he is going to do something with him…
I don't know. You'll see.
On the holding penalty against Ben Hartsock…
Well, at first I never thought he held. From my vantage point, I was like "This game is over. We are going to kick this field goal and get it over with." I understand you look at the film, he's got the man blocked and then when a guy does try to release, you've got to let it go. He was in position a little too long and never let him go in time. That's unfortunate. He's trying to be aggressive. Once the guy is trying to release, you have to let him go.
On his blitz packages and if the league is catching up with them…
Yeah, I guess so.
On if there was too much focus on getting the ball to Dustin Keller as opposed to David Clowney or Danny Woodhead…
I don't know. A lot of times you're seeing a lot of Cover-2, where you are going to get more of the intermediate route to your tight end, checkdowns as well. I think what they are doing defensively might have contributed to him getting that many passes thrown to him. We said the week before that depending on the opponent and specific things that sometimes the tight end will be more of the target than the receiver and vice versa. If you are going to play a lot of Cover-2, a lot of passes are going to go to the interior receivers.
On Woodhead not being more of a factor on offense…
He only had two days as a receiver, so going into the game I thought he would get zero snaps on offense. We put him up because we thought he could help us on special teams. He only had two or three days of trying to be a wideout. This is a totally new position for him.
On what teams are doing different against the blitz…
They are going to do a lot of three-man routes. They are not sitting back there releasing four like they were doing before. When you really look at it, the game plans have almost been identical in the fact that they try to run the football, keep running, keep running, keep running, make second manageable, third manageable, without just trying to throw every snap on you. We are going to have to look at what they are doing. Whether that's having more three-man rushes and make them pay for keeping everybody in there.
On Sanchez's progressions…
You see different coverages now with more two-deep, more two-man changing up the reads. They take longer. Some of the routes are further down the field. Sometimes when you have the middle closed, right now where are you going to throw it? We are seeing different things. We knew we would. It's kind of good news, bad news. We bring in Braylon Edwards and the coverage has to change and it definitely did. That opens up the running game. I think we definitely saw the fact in it, right there, 318 yards rushing.
It's good news, bad news. Bad news is it's going to be tougher to throw. Good news is it's easier to run. Now whether the Raiders always played man coverage almost every snap, we will see how they defend. They have two excellent cover corners, so we'll see what their plan is.
On where the team is emotionally…
Again, I think this team has a lot more character than maybe most people think. I'm banking on that. We are going to come out and give everything we have on the practice field, fly down to Oakland and try to win one game in a row.
On if going down to Oakland two days early was something that he used to do at Baltimore…
Yeah and we'll stay on East Coast time is what we tell our guys. It's kind of messed up and we will tell them later in the week. Basically, what we do is we'll fly down and get that trip. Anybody that's taken that trip out west, the jet lag is real, so we have to hydrate right now, start drinking plenty of fluids and be ready to take that trip. You get out there, but you stay on East Coast time, body clock time. I think we have had some success going out west that way.
On if he knows if Jerricho Cotchery and Brad Smith will practice this week…
Not really. I think Jerricho feels better where Brad was kind of like this, but we'll see. Things can change quite a bit. Hopefully they will be able to practice some this week and feel like they are up to playing, if not, we have to go with what we have and make it work.
On the replay challenge that cost the team a timeout…
That definitely was on me. In the game I'm looking at the Videotron and the guy is clearly out of bounds. I'm like, 'Well shoot, let's just take the six yards.' It's six yards and at that point, that might make the difference of making a field goal or missing one. I was like, let's just take it. It's a no-brainer. Then as it went on, as we dragged it on, I am getting calls down, "Oh, We don't have a view of it." I'm like "Oh, great." As I'm seeing the JumboTron, it's clear that it appears that he's clearly out of bounds. That was really what I went off on.
On if the officials get the same shots from the stadium videoscreens...
Not necessarily.
On if the officials only see the broadcast footage…
You guys know what I'm talking about when you saw that video thing, would I have been the only guy to throw the flag? I think we all would have. It looks like he's out of bounds because six yards to me, that's huge. That's the difference. I mean, it could be the difference in launching a field goal or having one that's really in your range. Right then, we are looking at anything. We aren't going to concede a yard if we can. Clearly, when it came back that we never really had a good view of it, then there's nothing you can do. Now normally you wait on that situation, you hear things, but I wasn't going to let them snap a ball off and not get that thing called.
On the media saying "same old Jets" after every loss…
We've got to do something to get that changed. I don't believe it, "the same old Jets". My "same old Jets" would be my dad who won the Super Bowl. I'll sign up for that. If you want to go back to karma, let's go for that. I believe in this football team and I've said that from day one. I know I'll get criticized for it because maybe my expectations were too high. I don't think that's true. My expectations are we are going to have a heck of a football team and I am not backing off on that one bit. It's my job. We have hired some excellent coaches and I think we have got a great nucleus of players that we should be successful. We haven't been successful these last three weeks, and we have got to take a hard look at why, what we are doing well, what we are not doing well, and either fix it or throw it ought. That's what we got to do.
