1495 Sports is proud to bring these New York Jets quotes from 9/17/12.
New York Jets logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Opening Statement:
“I think the big thing, before we get into our meetings and all that kind of stuff, is going to be learning from this game. It’s bad enough to lose a game, but you need to learn from it. What are the correctable mistakes that were made in the game (and) how (do) you go about fixing it, those types of things. If you can learn from them, then obviously, losing the game, there’s nothing good that comes out of it except for the chance for learning from it. You’d much rather win a game and learn from mistakes in those games. I thought we did that even last week. I thought the defense was much more physical this game than it was in the previous game against Buffalo in stopping the run. I thought that was positive. (I) thought we had some other positive things. We knew it was going to be a challenge going up against Pittsburgh. For the most part, I thought we were efficient in our pass protection, so that was positive. I thought we had some good runs. We averaged 4.1 yards a carry against Pittsburgh. That’s positive. But we made too many mistakes to beat Pittsburgh. (Ben) Roethlisberger did what he did. Our biggest thing was not getting off the field on third down (on defense) and not staying on the field on third down in the second half on offense. That was the difference of the game. When you look at other things, it’s probably even, maybe. We had our moments, but the third downs killed us.”
On if he saw opportunities where he should’ve used the Wildcat after watching the film:
“I thought we were doing a great job offensively early in the game, especially the beginning of that game. Almost the entire first half, I thought we were moving the ball well. For us, we’re always going to do what’s in the best interests of (our) team, what (we) think is going to give (our) team a chance to be successful. We did have some Wildcat plays going into that game, but as the game went on, we’re down by 10 points late in that game, I even thought about it. But it was more like, ‘Hey, we’re down, let’s see if we can’t make some plays.’ We knew we we’re getting a lot of press coverage on the outside, we thought we could make some plays. Quite honestly, they just executed better than we did.”
On the running game:
“Well, I think there are things that you can always improve on. I think we’re doing a better job at blocking down field than we did last year. I think we’re getting more movement than we did last year. We did run the ball pretty efficiently in really both of the games, so I think we’re ahead of where we were last year at this point, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. We’d prefer to run the ball more, we want to run the ball more than we did. When you look at it, we’re a big team that talks about runs and completions. Well, it wasn’t even close in that game. Pittsburgh had 52 and I think we had 32 so it wasn’t even close. Even though Pittsburgh averaged 2.5 (yards) per carry and they still ran the football, and I think that sometimes is a hidden stat that affects wins and losses. So again, what it all boiled down to, and (what) I think it really boiled down to (was) who did better on third down. Clearly, they won that battle.”
Linebacker David Harris:
On why the defense struggled yesterday:
“Ben Roethlisberger made some great plays. He made a couple guys miss, me in particular. He got away from me on that long pass (where) he hit Mike Wallace in the end zone. He’s a good quarterback. He makes plays and we didn’t do enough on defense to get off the field.”
On if he is confident the mistakes can be fixed:
“Yea they are. They’re all fixable. There weren’t any miss assignments or anything. It was just little things like technique. We tackled pretty well. We had a lot of guys on the ball. We were really physical up front. They made more plays then we did.”
On if every AFC East team being 1-1 effects the team’s mindset:
“It can’t. We can’t let it. I try my best to watch the film, but really pay as little attention to the scores as possible. By doing that we put ourselves in a position like we put ourselves in last year, sitting at the end of the year, hoping that someone wins or loses again. We want to control our own destiny. In order to do that, we have to handle business on game day and allow the rest of the chips to fall as they will.”
On the Miami offense:
“Miami is a very high-tempo offense right now. Going down, playing that game in their house, away, in that kind of heat presents the issue of making sure that everybody is in shape and everybody is hydrated. Making that trip from up north down south, that’s the one thing that guys usually struggle with, the humidity difference and being able to adjust to that. They have a lot of the same guys returning from last year that we’ve seen before. We know that they can run the ball very well. They have a young guy there at quarterback that has a lot of talent. As far as the receivers, they still have some guys that are emerging as their go-to guys. We know who their running back is. We know him inside and out. He’s a guy we’ve played against for some time now. We’re excited. We still have to go in and do the official cut ups of the film. We did a lot of evaluation of our film from yesterday this morning. From here on out, we will be diving into the Miami film and seeing what we can find in there to give us an edge.”
On Reggie Bush:
“When you have a player with the kind of talent of Reggie, he’s a threat to score every time he touches the ball. There aren’t too many players that fit that description walking around in the NFL. You have Chris Johnson, Reggie Bush, there are very few (who can do that), especially at the running back position. At receiver you have Calvin (Johnson) and the guys out in New England, but when you see that at the running back position, it changes the way a defense has to defend against those teams. He’s definitely a guy that in your game plan, you definitely know where he is when he comes on the field.”
On how they can work on their mistakes in practice:
“You just have to go back to the basics. Each guy has to focus in on their job and their job only. When you have 11 guys doing their job, we’re really tough to beat.”
Related Articles:
* http://1495sports.com/2012/09/14/1495-sports-jets-quotes-91412/
* http://1495sports.com/2012/09/14/1495-sports-jets-quotes-91312/