2009 Preseason Week 3 - Jets at Giants Photos
Transcript of Jets head coach Rex Ryan's news conference Saturday night following the Jets' 27-25 win over the Giants:
All right, first thing. We got us a win. I talked about I was going to give myself a game ball, but after we blew about two or three coverages in that fourth quarter I decided not to give myself a game ball. We've got to get obviously a heck of a lot better than that.
I thought our offense really was outstanding today, despite the obvious 1-for-11, which I'm sure somebody will point out on third downs. But we had our moments, I thought we had control of the game late in the second quarter and then it felt good, it felt pretty comfortable, and then we had a couple of mistakes on defense with that last group. Those guys are NFL players, you know a lot of times they do a lot of good things, but we've got to be consistent, we can't make those mistakes. We've got to get that corrected.
I thought the enthusiasm, the effort, everything was good, though we started on our heels a little bit. We had seven penalties in the first quarter, which is obviously not the way you want to start. Sometimes I can understand, you're testing to see how we're going to call things and all that, but that's clearly not a way to start a game -- we had like three offside penalties right in a row. I don't know why that is. It seemed like we just jumped for some reason. It seems like it happens a lot in the red zone against the Giants on third down.
On how he thought QB Mark Sanchez played...
Well, he played OK [laughs]. I mean he played great. He played great. You know and that one to Jerricho [Cotchery] could have been a touchdown, just was off the mark just a tad, but I thought the kid was poised. He is what we thought he was.
On if Sanchez was relieved of a lot of pressure when he named him the starting quarterback...
No, not really. I mean, you know he's been impressive in practice, he really has been. I just think it was good for the team. More than anything else, I think it was good for the team to say, "Hey, OK, we're moving forward right now. This is our starting quarterback, here's our starting 11 and let's go out and play." I thought our offense looked good.
On if it was good for the team to see Sanchez play well tonight…
That's a good point because you see the excitement. Now they're saying, "That's my boy." Everyone of them is saying that so it's one of those types of deals [laughing]. They're proud that he's our quarterback and he did a great job today.
On what Sanchez's touchdown throw to Chansi Stuckey said about him…
He's poised. He's right there. He's able to move in the pocket a little bit and we saw all of that today not with just that throw, but some other throws he made as well. That's big-time to see that. I think we all feel good about our quarterback.
On Sanchez taking a hit during his touchdown pass to Stuckey…
Right. There's no doubt. You've got to do that in this league. You're going to get hit. It's not as we call it 7-on-7 back there. That's why you've got to be able to move. You've got to know your protection and know where you can escape. I thought he did a great job. I thought our offensive line protected well. This is an outstanding front that the Giants have.They've got some real pass rushers up front there and I thought our guys did a great job.
On the Jets' running game…
I liked the running game somewhat. We had our moments. I thought it was kind of some tough sledding in there. You know it's a good front that you're playing against, but we just kept hammering it in there. And that's going to be our M.O. We've got to be able to run the football. I thought Leon [Washington] had some big time runs. He's special and you saw that. Thomas [Jones] is close but it seemed like sometimes a little hit from the backside, not as clean as we need to have it, so they got to trip him up. We couldn't really get him going like we wanted to.
On Stuckey's performance…
I think he wanted me to know something [laughing]. He was outstanding, he really was. And "88 [Aundrae Allison] was out the gate" today. I just want to mention that. He stopped first for a minute. That was a little ridiculous.
On if the offense could become more than a run-first-pass-second offense…
My point is that we are going to run the football. I hope we're able to throw it some, too, but we are a run team and we're a Cover-3 team on defense because that's what we've been playing almost every snap on defense. So as far as you know, that's all we'll play.
On areas for improvement…
First thing, we've got to clean up those penalties. We're going the wrong way on that. The first game, I don't know how many we had, maybe two. I thought we were going to set an NFL record after that first quarter. But you've got to stay aggressive. As long as they're aggressive penalties, I'm OK with that. You've got to play to the whistle. But it's the alignments and lining up off sides. Those are the things you can't stand as a coach.
On CB Lito Sheppard's pass interference calls and his performance…
Those are going to happen. He's going to get a lot of work over there because they don't want to throw it the other direction with [Darrelle] Revis over there. He knows that. The thing that I was happy about was that he never backed off. Yes, he got called on a penalty and that one, I thought, was a little touchy. Again, you've got to know what they're calling and what they're not. I thought he was aggressive. He had his moments. He probably wished he had a couple of plays back. Some of those things that we gave up, he was playing with outside leverage, which was what the call called for. That's a tough play, some of those.
On Vernon Gholston's performance…
My first thought is I guess he led with his head on the first hit on the quarterback, but he made some plays out there today. He was aggressive. We saw that. There were some times maybe a little inconsistent still. We've got to keep him going, but I think he's getting better and we saw that today. This is a good football team that we're up against and I thought he competed well.
On if there is one specific area for improvement…
I don't think there's really one area. I guess if I had to choose something, it's the communication on the back end. Normally, we're doing a great job of that, but we had a couple of calls where we just never communicated. I will say this. The only thing that was worse than the way we started the game on defense was our communication with our headset to Jimmy Leonhard. As bad as we were on defense, that communication was even worse. So that made it a little difficult.
On a young player who stood out to him vs. the Giants…
I think [Jamaal] Westerman had a couple good rushes there. I thought he did some things. I thought [Jason] Trusnik came in the game, we had him spy the quarterback. I thought he did well. On offense Sanchez is obviously the youngster that stood out.
