Here are some notes from the New York Jets end of season press conference featuring General Manager John Idzik and Head Coach Rex Ryan:

New York Jets logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Opening Statement…

John Idzik:

“Good morning, welcome to Florham Park. This is just a brief summary of our 2013 season in review. We’re fresh off the heels of our trip to Miami. There’s a lot of encouraging things that came out of this season. As we’ve said before, we’ve had a lot of changes. We’ve had a lot of new things occur here with the Jets starting with our staff (and) myself. We’ve changed our offensive approach, had a lot of new faces on our roster, a lot of new players that had significant playing time, starters. For us to go through that and end the way we did was very encouraging. We had some ups and downs during the season. We had some inconsistences that we all acknowledged. But how our guys responded said a lot about our players, about our team (and) about our building. So we were very, very encouraged by the 2013 season. We can’t wait. We had a lot of exit interviews with all of our players yesterday and I think the feeling was just consistent throughout that we want to play. We can’t wait to get started for 2014 which was healthy, which was very good to hear.”

On the top priorities heading into the offseason:

Idzik:

“Well, the first one is to gain a thorough and accurate assessment of what happened so that we can address things going forward. That’s what we’re going through right now. As I said, we really value the input of our players, so we spent the entire day yesterday, the morning through the evening, just getting their impressions. We’ll continue to do that, too. The next step is to go through with our coaches. We started that yesterday as well, just to get a very detailed and accurate picture of what we have, and we feel like we have a very good nucleus here. And then we’ll translate that into positional needs, where we have to fortify a little depth (and) experience going into free agency. We have a full array of draft picks going into this year and so we feel like we’re equipped to help our team going forward.”

On if they have talked about a contract extension for Coach Ryan:

Idzik:

“We won’t get into any contract talks or anything like that. But Rex and I talk every day. We’re joined at the hip. We have been since I arrived. Certainly, the topic that is going to come up next is our staff. And as Rex just said, things happen so fast. The season in the NFL ends so abruptly. We are really focused just on the day, the week and that game. When it ends so quickly as it did in Miami, there was such emotion in our locker room, such a positive vibe in our locker room, you just want to take a breath and say, ‘Okay, let’s really ascertain what (happened).’ The first step of that was with our players. Rex and I will sit down this week. We’ll go through each coach individually. We’ll talk to them and we’ll have a much better view on going forward with our staff after this week.”

On how he would feel to coach next season under his existing contract…

Ryan:

“Again guys, I think with me, I’m so excited about the future. I’m not different than our players or anybody else in this organization. I can’t wait to get going and you pull back up through here, it’s like, “Let’s go.” Yeah, we have a good feeling. We have momentum heading into the offseason with two wins, we understand we’re back to 0-0, but I think the way we feel, the way we know, the way the locker room is, the preparation, all that, we see the results of it and we’re excited about it. John mentioned earlier how our players, if you said we could start the season right now, our guys would say, “Let’s go for it.”  And I don’t know how many times you can really say that at the end of the year. Most guys are (saying), “You know what, I need a little R and R (rest and relaxation) and all that.” Our guys would hit the reset button right now. That’s how they feel about it. That’s the kind of energy that’s in the building and that’s kind of the excitement that we have as an organization going forward.”

On how much focus will be on improving the skill positions:

Idzik:

“There will be an emphasis there but there will be an emphasis on improving every single position. Yes, we’re going to improve the skill positions, absolutely we’re going to improve the skill positions. Improvement comes in many forms. It could be a new face from free agency, it could be a new face from the draft, it could also be right in our locker room. They come in and we add a lot of valuable experience. I think we said it Sunday night, there’s no teacher like experience. The players that we have in our locker room, we believe they’re going to be improved, they’re going to come back a different player, a better player. That emphasis will be in a lot of different forms. It will come by way of looking at how we can improve through free agency, the draft, potential trades but also how we can get the fine nucleus that we have here to improve.”

On how long it will take for the Jets to win the Super Bowl:

Idzik:

“We don’t put timelines on anything, but I can say this, every season we line up, that’s our goal. Our goal is to get there. Our goal is to win our division. Our goal is to play in the postseason. Our goal is bringing the prize home for our Jets fans, for New York, New Jersey (and) everyone that’s behind us. That will always be our goal. When Rex speaks about the feeling that we get in our locker room, it’s genuine. That’s what we got from not only this season, but you felt it Sunday, you felt it yesterday when we were going through our discussions with the players here. Everyone is on board. They’re all excited. When you have that. When you talk about a good vibe in the building. When you have that, yeah, everyone’s eyeing that, but nothing’s handed to you. The real challenge in our league, it’s very difficult to go to the White House. It’s very difficult to hoist that silver trophy. So many things have to come together, but our guys feel that. They have a genuine desire. They care for each other. We have a lot of selfless guys in the locker room. When you have that kind of unity and you set those types of goals, they become real.”