Rex Ryan had no comment today on if he and his staff and players knew that one Patriot had tried to push a teammate on a field goal try the previous week against the Saints or if he alerted referee Jerome Boger's crew to the tactic.
"What we discussed to our team I'll just leave in house," Ryan said in response to one reporter's question about the Jets' knowledge of the rule on a conference call this afternoon. Did he alert the officials? Rex replied, 'Again, you know what? My comments with the officials and all that I'll just leave that way."
Boger's crew flagged rookie Chris Jones for pushing teammate Will Svitek into the Jets' interior line on Nick Folk's 56-yard game-winning field goal try in overtime. That kick missed but the penalty — the first time the new player safety penalty was called in an NFL game. The same two players were involved in a similar play the week before in the last-second win in New Orleans but that play was not flagged.
Ryan didn't discuss his private comments to his team or the officials crew, but he did have knowledge of the new rule.
"It was a rule that was emphasized this year," the coach said. "It's all about protecting the players. Just like a hit on an unprotected player is a big emphasis, this has also been an emphasis in protecting the players. Was it an appropriate call? Yes."
And as far as if he and special teams coordinator Ben Kotwica saw that specific play in the Patriots-Saints game video during their preparation this week, Ryan said:
"Let's just put it this way: We watch every single play. I don't care if it's Week 16, we're going to watch every play of the opponent. That's what we do as coaches. I know Ben watches all the special teams. I don't know if I've watched every game, but I certain watch a bunch of them. The coordinators and coaches watch every single play of every single game. We're aware of opponents' tendencies and everything else."
Magic Formula?
Ryan again referred to the formula he likes to monitor for the way a game might go or the way a game has gone. In short, it's carries plus completions.
"Certainly the 69 rushing attempts and completions, I don't know if we've had a higher total since I've been here," Ryan said. "I don't know if we've had a higher total than 52 rushing attempts, either. We knew that was going to be good for us."
As we mentioned Sunday, since the start of the Rex era in 2009, the Jets had more carries in two games, the 57 totes in the '09 regular-season finale vs. Cincinnati and the 54 attempts in the 38-0 road win over the Raiders earlier that year.
As for more than 69 C C's in a game, we had 72 in the overtime win at Cleveland in '10.
Then if you look at the C C margin between the Jets (69) and the Patriots (42) in Sunday's game, the plus-27 is tied for the seventh-best figure during Rex's tenure.
What's important about the margin is that, similar to turnovers, the higher it is, the better a team's chances of winning. When our C C margin is plus-15 or higher under Ryan, our record is 16-2 (only losses: vs. Miami in '09, vs. the Giants in '11). When it's plus-10 or higher, the record is 25-5.
Rex Cetera Ryan said of rookie CB Dee Milliner, who left the game in the fourth quarter with an unspecified injury, "I think he'll be fine." ... Late this afternoon we activated QB David Garrard from the exempt list and released QB Brady Quinn. Read Eric Allen's story here.
