Transcripts of selected news conferences and interviews following the Jets' 10-9 loss to the Ravens at New Meadowlands Stadium on Monday night:
HEAD COACH REX RYAN
This is obviously a very disappointing loss. That goes without saying. Every loss is tough. You have to tip your hat to the Ravens. Both of us knew it was going to be this kind of game. The two teams are built very similarly. They won the important downs, third down. We converted one of 11 on third down and they were 58 percent. That stat alone gets you beat, let alone 14 penalties. You have to give them credit. We weren't close in rushing attempts and completions, and that's one of our staples as an organization. They ran the ball 34 times, and that's important. I don't know how many balls they completed, but it seemed like a bunch.
One thing about this — it is a long season. It is one game, and I will say this: As everyone knows, I have confidence in every man in our locker room. There's no question. We weren't at our best today, but that's a credit to the Ravens. I know we can get better, and that's the challenge to us. We have to get better, and I believe we will.
On the Jets' penalties…
In the first half alone, I think we gave up five first downs on defense on holding calls, pass interference, and all that kind of stuff. That's not who we are or how we play. We pride ourselves on being one of the least-penalized defenses in the league. Today was a joke. They just threw it up there — shoot, I don't blame them. Hope for a completion or a penalty. We've got to do a better job than that, and I believe we will.
On the injury to NT Kris Jenkins…
Obviously, it's a huge loss. There are very few Kris Jenkinses out there. Baltimore has one in Haloti Ngata, who's a great player. That's a huge loss. I have no idea what the extent of the injury is, so I'm hopeful that it's not serious, but clearly it was enough for him not to return to the game. We're definitely hoping that he'll be OK.
On this loss being "humbling"…
Humbling in the fact that we got beat by a point. We're obviously not going to go undefeated this year, but our goals remain the same. The fact is we want to win the Super Bowl and we think we can win the Super Bowl. We did get beat by one point by a heck of a football team. We know that. It wasn't our best day, but again, they earned it. They beat us probably in every statistical category there is except turnovers.
On the play of CBs Kyle Wilson and Antonio Cromartie…
They have some good wideouts out there, and we're going to be able to do the same thing when we can line up. That's the plan. They did a good job of throwing it up, quite honestly, and they came down with some plays. We kept battling them. That's something we have to get better at.
On the play of QB Mark Sanchez…
I was alarmed that we couldn't get off the field on defense more than I was alarmed that we did so little today offensively. That's a pretty good team with an excellent defense. He wasn't the only one. He did misfire on a few passes, but quite honestly, he's not the only guy that needs to improve. There's a bunch of us that need to improve, and I believe we will.
On if he took out RB Shonn Greene after his fumble…
No, I never took him out.
On whether Wilson and Cromartie lacked discipline or technique or just got beat deep…
I think maybe a little all of the above there. In terms of Kyle Wilson, I thought the young man played pretty well. When he had the penalty that put the ball at the 1-yard line, we blew the blitz. We would have had a free runner, but for whatever reason, we never executed the blitz. If it's a zero blitz, you shouldn't have time to throw the football down the field 30 yards, but that's what happened.
On the final offensive play of the game…
You guys saw it as well as I did. That was Ripley's. When you study it, you're going to see that the first-down marker was pulled in. You're going to have to ask Dustin [Keller], but I believe he thought he had the first down. You'll have to ask him. But again, there's no excuses here. I was shocked because when I saw the ball go over, I thought, "OK, we're still alive here. We're still breathing."
On if they made a concerted effort to attack the secondary with the Ravens down two starters…
They got some good pressures on us. They were able to get to our quarterback a couple of times. They mixed it up. You have to give them credit. They still have some good football players over there.
On if the Patriots game takes on more importance after starting 0-1…
It's hard to make up games, that's for sure. We all saw their game. New England looked pretty darn good. There are no easy games in this league. New England looks like they are right at the top, so we are going to have to play our best, no question.
On reasons for the Jets' penalties…
It starts with the defensive penalties. Those were the biggest thing. We had that one pass to Dustin that would have given us a chance to get a big lead but our guy wasn't set. Without question, we've got to get better at things like that. We have to be physical, but we have to play smart. We pride ourselves on playing great, physical defense, but you can't have those penalties. You have to be smarter than that.
On why WR Braylon Edwards had so few catches…
One reason was that Baltimore kept the football. Give them credit, they kept the football, they kept drives alive. We helped them keep drives alive also. That was part of the reason. But you're exactly right, Braylon Edwards should be a bigger threat than he was tonight. We have to give him the ball.
On the investigation being conducted by the team and the NFL…
Number one, we never want anyone around our team to be uncomfortable. We are cooperating with the NFL and we will get down to it. I really don't want to comment more than that on it.
On the play of Jets DT Sione Pouha…
The guy plays great. That's the first question I've had on him in two years. He does a tremendous job for us. Last year when Kris Jenkins went down, the defense challenged themselves to get better at stopping the run because we lost our big man in there, and we did get better. We improved by like 20 yards a game. Sione is a huge reason for that. Today, Baltimore rushed 34 times for 50 yards. That's a great rushing football team. They can run the ball against anybody. A lot of credit goes to Sione. He's probably one of the best unknown players in this league.
On how long Jenkins may be out…
I have no idea. All I know is that he couldn't return today. Maybe we will hear some good news tomorrow.
QB MARK SANCHEZ
On the Jets' offensive performance…
We didn't have our best performance and we obviously wanted to play better in front of our home crowd for the first time. I think this loss is attributed to a lot of mistakes on offense. On third down, we didn't convert whether the ball wasn't in the right spot or guys didn't come down with it or if we got pressure from a good defensive front. There's no excuse to be 1-for-11 on third downs. We're disappointed with that. We had too many self-inflicted wounds. But hats off to them. I'm not questioning our effort, our will, our desire to win the game. There's no doubt that everybody in this locker room wanted to win, but we didn't execute and it's really unfortunate.
On the slow start, given the promise of the preseason and training camp…
They have a great defense and hats off to them for playing smart. From a quarterback's perspective and from my perspective, I felt like we wanted to just keep giving ourselves a chance. As long as we didn't give it to them and as long as we could convert on third downs, then we could have a chance. We took care of the ball fairly well — we had one fumble, no picks — but we just couldn't convert. We have to go back and take a look inside ourselves and see what went wrong and what was the cause of it. People need to own up to our mistakes, move on and get ready for a New England team next week.
On the loss being a humbling experience…
It's a long year. We have a few more games before we need to start worrying. I think we'll be OK. I think we'll be just fine, but a few things need to be addressed. The penalty issue needs to be addressed immediately and we need to play a lot smarter.
On the Baltimore defense…
I felt like we had a great game plan in place. Guys were open and we had some good plays and some positive plays to build off of from this game. I thought they brought a lot of energy, but they did what we thought they were going to do. We just hurt ourselves.
On throwing the ball downfield more…
We had one downfield early in the game to Dustin [Keller], but we had a shifting penalty, an illegal formation penalty. It seemed like anytime we had a good play, something happened and we hurt ourselves. Those are things we need to eliminate and we'll fix them and get up.
On the fourth-down caught pass by Keller on the last drive…
I got him the ball as soon as I could. There was a defender playing under, so I had to throw it over him. That's why he didn't have much time at the end to tap his feet. Other than that, I don't know.
On the team's pre- and offseason exposure contributing to tonight's play…
I don't think so, not at all. I think we just played undisciplined and it's really too bad. There's a lot of talent in here. I think we all feel the same way. We're just disappointed in ourselves and we have a lot of work to do.
On disappointment with the loss…
It's frustrating because we had guys in the right position, but either we didn't come up with the ball, or the ball wasn't in the right spot, or we got pushed by a good defensive front. It's really too bad. It seemed like on everyone, we took our turns making mistakes. We can't do that. This is the ultimate team sport and we all have to do it right on every play for it to work. We didn't do it tonight and that's the reason why we didn't come up with a win.
On his feeling about today's loss…
It's frustrating and it's disappointing. There's so much talent in this locker room that there's really no excuse. We took care of the football pretty well, we won the turnover battle, but it was the penalties and lack of third-down conversions. There are a lot of things to be addressed, but we will do that. This is a long season. If any team can do it, I think this team can and bounce back next week against a good New England team. That's where our focus is.
On reasons for all of the penalties…
Just undisciplined play on offense and defense. That's just the way things go. You have to be smart. You can't blame anything on the officials, you just have to look at yourself in the mirror and own up to the mistakes. That's what we'll do and move on.
On picking up only six first downs…
I think we just took our turns making our own mistakes on offense. This is the ultimate team sport. When 10 of 11 guys do it right, it doesn't work out. It may every once in a while, but it doesn't usually work and it didn't 10 times tonight. It's embarrassing and frustrating and something that needs to be addressed and we'll do it.
On grading his own performance…
I'll wait to watch the film for that. I'm pleased that we didn't give up any turnovers in the air. We just need to convert better. We have the talent to do it, but to go 1-for-11, there's no excuse for doing that. There's definitely some throws I would want back. Everyone's upset, saying that Dustin should have been deeper on his route. Well, on the play before, I missed LT [LaDainian Tomlinson] and that's an easy first down if not a 20-yard gain. We all took our turn making mistakes and there's no excuse for that. We have to clean that up.
On if he is disappointed losing the home opener…
We wanted to come out and show our fans how appreciative we are. There's no doubt that our energy was there, our effort was there. We just didn't play smart enough. The first game, opening night of your house, you'd love to win that game. We can't go back now. We have to move on and we'll really learn from this game and get ready for next week.
On the last drive…
We were always thinking the same thing: We're going to go down and score. All we needed was a field goal and we should have been ready to do that. We just didn't execute and that was the story of the game.
On lost opportunities given the play of the defense…
They played well. We held them to, what, 10 points? That's too bad. If we can't score 10 points then we have a lot of work to do on offense.
On Tomlinson's play…
He looked great. Every time he touched the ball something good happened. It's my job to get it to him and not throw it behind him like I did on the second-to-last play of the game. If we do that, we're in business and maybe we're still playing.
On if he got hurt on Baltimore DT Haloti Ngata's sack…
No, Haloti just hit me in a pretty good spot and that's a pretty big guy falling on you. It's just the way it goes but I feel good.
On what an outside team watching today's game would think of the Jets' play…
If I was an outside team, I would think that we were undisciplined. If a team plays us, they're going to rely on us to make a lot of mistakes and if we play like we did tonight, we aren't going to win many games. Hopefully, we can get this thing turned around and I think we will.
CB DARRELLE REVIS
On his first game since the holdout…
I figured that they were going to come at me. They tried to a couple of times, but nothing happened. I just prepared myself that I was going to be the target out there on the field.
On if he felt game-ready…
I felt good. They were monitoring me on the sidelines if I needed a blow, but I prepared myself for this first game even though I wasn't at training camp.
On the block he threw on CB Antonio Cromartie's interception return…
Just trying to make a play, help a teammate out with a block. I saw him across the field and I just tried to make a block for him.
On if he's disappointed the Jets weren't able to make a statement in Week 1…
It's a disappointment for us as a team. We wanted to win this game to be 1-0 going into the Patriots game feeling good. Right now we just have to go back to the drawing board and get more focused and play ball.
On the loss…
We're a better team than this. I just think there were a lot of penalties and a lot of distractions on the field with all that was going on. That's a part of the game — flags, being aggressive. I just think we need to focus a little more and be smart with everything we do out on the field.
On NT Kris Jenkins' injury…
It hurts, man. I'm very close with Kris and you don't want to see that happen. He was very excited when I talked to him before the game. I said, "Just go out there and sell out," and we're just sad to see that. I hope everything is OK.
On what the Jets were hoping to gain by the matchups with the receivers…
We thought our matchups were very good coming into this game. We knew they had three good receivers — [Derrick] Mason, [T.J.] Houshmandzadeh and [Anquan] Boldin. They made plays out there and even Todd Heap made plays as well. We couldn't do anything about it at that point. They outexecuted and they made plays.
On how deflating the big defensive penalties were…
It's not very difficult to overcome. I think we just need to focus more and do our job. We're an aggressive defense. That's how we play and we're not going to stop playing like that over some penalties. I think we just need to focus more on technique in practice so we can't get those holding penalties. I got one in the beginning. That's how the game goes sometimes, but you can overcome them in the game and overcome adversity.
CB ANTONIO CROMARTIE
On if there was a focus issue for the Jets…
No, there was no focus issue at all. We just have to be better and more disciplined on the back end to do the things we are supposed to do.
On how they can correct their mistakes…
You have to go in and watch film. Once we go in and watch film, you can correct yourself. Once you correct yourself, you can't go out and make the same mistakes. Then you're not learning from the coaches. We have to go in tomorrow, watch the film and get better.
On if Darrelle Revis being back and players being moved to different roles hurt the secondary…
Absolutely not. I think it helped that he wasn't there because it gave us the experience. He made the first big play. That's all you can ask from him. As a secondary, we want to do better and we want to be better on the back end.
On why the defense had trouble getting off the field…
We have to play a little more disciplined with our eyes and communicate a little better. I think that's what we need to do.
TE DUSTIN KELLER
On the last play of the game…
When I caught the ball I thought I was right at the spot and could just go out of bounds ahead of the first-down mark, but unfortunately that wasn't the case.
On the frustration of starting the season with a loss after all the offseason hype…
It's tough, it's definitely tough. Especially when you want to get the momentum going and get everything in sync and that just wasn't the case today. We'll just have to get back to work tomorrow and start preparing for the next game.
On the lack of consistency from the offense…
We tried to find what was working in the game and stick to it. Unfortunately, we never figured out what that was. Hats off to them, they did a good job of shutting us down, but that just wasn't our offense. We need to move the ball and get more points on the board.
On Coach Ryan's message to the team after the game…
We've just got to go back to work and do what we do best. Today we played bad, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Third downs are an area we were going to pride ourselves on being really good at and we were really bad today. We just have to make some corrections.
