Videos and excerpts from our three coordinators at their weekly news conferences on Thursday afternoon at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center:
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR MARTY MORNHINWEG
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Mornhinweg on how challenging this year has been compared to other seasons…
Well, that's one reason I came here. This was going to be a great challenge. And personally, I like challenges. We all like challenges. The players love challenges. The staff loves challenges. And it's been very rewarding up until the past few weeks, where we're having trouble functioning because of a couple things. Now, I think we're closer than it appears, but we certainly have to clean some things up.
As far as challenging, everything's challenging. Even when you're doing really well, that next game is more important than the game before and then the next game is more important. Well, heck, this game is important for our players, for our coaches, for our organization. Every game gets bigger and so I like that part of it.
It does seem that one difference that I've been through a couple times, it's been a while, it seems like I'm still teaching the play as well as how we're going to proceed against this particular player or opponent. So you're teaching the play and in many cases if you've been together several years, the play, we know the play and this is exactly how we're doing against number 33. So that has been just a little bit different that way, especially in the past handful of weeks there.
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR DENNIS THURMAN
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Thurman on if Ed Reed's speed has diminished from when he entered the league…**
Yeah, I mean, he's not as fast as he once was, but at 35 how many of us are? When you come into the league at 22 and now you play 12, 13 years, you're not going to have the same speed or quickness that you once had. But you make up for it in other ways — intangibles, studying tape, understanding where to be, how to fit into the defense, how to fit into the scheme, understanding what the offense is trying to do.
All those things are part of playing football and your experience teaches you that you may lose a step physically, but your mind accelerates because the game is still slow to you. So you can get where you need to get to, based on film studying and understanding how and when to break on a ball, as opposed to a guy that has all this physical talent and his mind is not where it should be. So he'll be late, but he may be able to make up for it with his physical speed. So, you can compensate either way.
SPECIAL TEAMS COORDINATOR BEN KOTWICA
Kotwica on losing Josh Cribbs to IR and what he has seen from Darius Reynaud…
Josh did a lot of great things for us during his time here. It's unfortunate, I feel bad for him, such a great competitor and versatile. Obviously, he did the punts, the kickoff returns and was able to cover kicks and such for us. The other thing I really liked about Josh was the veteran presence. The younger guys could feel it. I think he was a good presence for them to be around.
Darius came in, punt returner, kickoff returner. He worked out the other day, he has experience. More than likely he'll fill in those roles.
