The Philosophy of Todd Bowles

"This is a dream of a lifetime for me. Coming back home to be a part of the Jets organization, growing up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, being 30 miles from here, and the opportunity to give me to lead this team going forward to build a championship team, I can't tell you how thrilled I am for that opportunity."

"We're going to be a tough team. We're going to be an intelligent team. We're going to do things the right way. It's not about just playing great defense. For me being a defensive coordinator, it's scoring one more point than the other team. So, going forward we're going to do everything we can and use all our resources. We're going to try to build a championship team here. That's my only job."

"You have to grow into being a head coach. No matter how long or how new you are to the head coaching business, you are going to learn something new all the time. Overseeing everything gives you a different perspective, especially looking at the offensive side, but it's good."

"Parcells, he taught me the overall game. He taught me how to see the overall game, not just my position, not just the defense, but he taught me how to see offense, he taught me how to coach coaches, he taught me about the personnel side."

"I'm going to spend most of my time over there looking, learning, watching, seeing, and correcting when need be. It's important for me to spend some time over there. I can go back to the defensive side and kind of pick up where I left off, but on the offensive side it's good for me to go over there and learn."

"Obviously you have to throw the football in this league, but you have to run the football to win ball games. We want to have a good balance, and we want to have complementary football with our defense. We want to play off each other. We want to be tough, we don't want to be pushed around, we want to be explosive, we want to be all of those things, but we have to start fundamentally."

"I don't think I have tried to do anything special. I just try to be myself and coach football. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat. There are a lot of successful coaches and they all do it their own way. I have to make sure that I stay true to who I am and make sure the guys see that so they can relate to that."

"As a coach, I'll be demanding because it's a demanding sport and you've got to get the best out of your guys. But at the same time, you've got to hear them out and understand and know what they feel so you can get a good feel for the person."

"I think there are a bunch of different sides of Todd. I am very sarcastic. There is the sarcastic side and there is the comedy side. There is the serious side. Depending on who you ask, you will get about 10 different answers."

"What you don't see is that we do interact all the time. My thing is, you get to know them off the field a lot better than you get to know them on the field, so you kind of know what makes them tick. So, in the morning meetings, in between meetings, break time, locker room time, walking to meetings, cafeteria, we get a good feel for each other whether it's joking or serious or anything like that. You kind of learn what makes those guys tick."

"I don't want them to be robots - I just said they have to smart about it. There's a fine line between hurting the team and hurting yourself and then talking on social media. You just have to be smart about it. I would never police and tell somebody what to say, but you have to understand what kind of situation you're in when you say these things."

"Mike is outstanding. He is very diligent about going about things. He has his way, which I trust completely. Ironically, we see things the same way. Usually you have a couple of disagreements here and there, but we've been on the same page from day one. That helps me out a great deal and I am sure that helps him out a great deal."

"When I played I signed as an (undrafted) free agent. I mean there were 120 guys in camp, there were about seven free safeties, so that in itself was hard, because you had to start as about fifth or sixth string, so you have to work your way up there."