Partial transcript of head coach Rex Ryan's news conference following the walkthrough practice Monday afternoon at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center:
I think we pretty well covered it last night as far as with what happened in the game. We had a couple of good meetings. We do our walkthroughs for corrections after a win or a loss. Clearly, there was much more than usual. When you have those corrections and you watch the tape, man, you wish you had another shot. We had plenty of opportunities. We didn't execute very well. You've got to give our opponent a lot of credit. Dom Capers is an outstanding coordinator and we talked about that yesterday. Green Bay just made more plays than we did.
On what Dom Capers did to stifle the offense…
He played one coverage on first and second down, but they did a good job with eight, sometimes nine guys coming down there to play the run. I thought they played that much more effectively then they had been doing this season. They did a good job of moving with their front. Those guys made some plays on us. You've got to give them credit. We've got to be able to take advantage on the outside if people are going to load it up like that. We have the playmakers outside. We just have to execute better.
On if they got away from ground-and-pound yesterday…
We hurt ourselves with the penalties. We had some bad penalties making it first-and-20, first-and-15, second-and-13. It's tough enough to beat a good opponent, then to help their situation ... we've done a great job four weeks in a row without a false start and then we get one of those. We had some holding calls that really hurt you. We're not a team that's really built to be in first-and-20 situations. In those types of situations, we were 1-of-4 in being able to pick up the first down. You're not going to win many games that way.
We just have to make sure we're on point. We can't make those mistakes. It's one guy makes one mistake, but they add up. That's what's killing us right now. We crossed the 50 and then we get a penalty. We're right there in the high red and get a penalty. It's just killing us. You look at that game and we turned the ball over three times, yet we turned the ball over on downs three times, the obvious one at the end of the game, then we had the punt that was clearly a mistake, but that's six already. Then we missed a field goal. That's basically turning the ball over seven times.
On the two interceptions where the ball was ripped away…
You've got to fight for everything and not just the two guys Jerricho [Cotchery] and Dustin [Keller]. We've got to finish the plays with guys flying to the ball. The thing with Jerricho is I looked at it and I still think he caught it. It was said that he never caught it. In that situation the kid [Tramon Williams] made a play on us. I looked at it and I think he caught it. That wasn't the case. That's why I threw the flag when I did.
I knew we were going to punt. Everybody said, "Well, he could have made a field goal." I'm not going to say that because we were going to punt the football. If you have to drive 90 yards against an NFL defense, it's probably an eight percent chance you're going to score. Against our defense, it'd be worse than that. I just thought it made a huge difference starting from the 40 compared to the 10. I don't know. Maybe I'm looking at it through rose-colored glasses. I thought J-Co had it. The Dustin one was hard to tell. We'll see what's said about it.
On how to balance challenges so you still have one in the second half…
You never want to be out of challenges, obviously, into the second half. Like I said, I felt strongly about this. I thought Jerricho had the catch and when he went down I never thought the young man from Green Bay had the ball until he was clearly on the ground. Then he was able to pull the ball away. That's when I thought he had possession of the ball. I really felt strongly about that one or I wouldn't have thrown it.
On if Cotchery told him to throw the challenge flag…
Jerricho felt that he caught the football. There is no question about it. I believed with my eyes. I get things from up top, but I also believed it with my own eyes, that I thought Jerricho had possession of the football. Again, that wasn't the case and we ended up without a challenge.
On if the officials explained to him that if it was a simultaneous possession that he couldn't win the challenge because they ruled on the field that the defender had it…
No, because if the offense has possession then it's ruled the offensive player's ball. The only way they can have it, dual possession would have been the offensive player's football. They're basically saying with that the way it's called, my understanding is that clearly it's an interception or if' it's dual possession then it's the offensive player's ball.
On not being able to win the challenge if it was a dual possession…
Well that's what I'm saying. It would have been the offensive player's ball had it been that. I thought that we had possession of the football. That's what I thought. You can say, "Well it was dual possession," then that should be the offensive player's ball if that's the case.
On if Mark Sanchez threw more long passes than short ones late in the game…
I think with their particular coverage the vulnerability was deep. We actually had Braylon [Edwards] wide open. The pass that ended up going to Jerricho, there was nobody on Braylon within 20 yards. It's tough sometimes. It's easy to see it on film, but it's a lot tougher when you've got the ball in your hand and you're worried about stepping up, protecting the football and everything else. I think in those situations, we've got to look to check the ball down some. We had a rare mistake by a guy that has to release out and around — didn't do it in a situation. Sometimes Mark just has to take off with it and make it a fourth-and-manageable instead of a fourth-and-long, those types of situations. I just think we can execute a little better than what we did. I don't think necessarily it was the fact we ran a go route. We knew exactly what coverage we were getting. We just kind of got to execute.
On Edwards being open when Sanchez threw to Cotchery in the second quarter…
Oh, yes, that showed up too. That's what I'm talking about. There were plays to be made. You've got to give credit to the opponent because they played great on defense. They really did, but there were still plays to be had out there and unfortunately, we never made them.
On Edwards' comments that the offense got away from the basics and maybe there was a streak of arrogance…
I don't necessarily see that. It's not exactly that we lit up Denver, so I don't necessarily see that. I think there is some confidence. You're 5-1, you feel pretty confident. You're finding ways to win. I think the defense felt very confident because you had Darrelle [Revis] back, so I could see a little of that. "Hey, we're confident, we think we have a chance to be a great defense again." I could see that.
I never felt that way on offense. I just felt it was businesslike. I was concerned early in the week on Wednesday, we couldn't hit a ball in skelly [skeleton drills]. I told that to our players. We got much better as the week went on. I thought we were ready to have a big game. It just never happened.
On if Brian Schottenheimer is trying to get a feel for what his playmakers can do to keep everyone happy…
I think we're a team. There are going to be some games when— Jerricho got 14 balls thrown to him. Braylon only had one catch. Tone [Santonio Holmes] only had two catches. There are going to be games like that, but then it's going to be flipped the next week. You've just got to understand. You've just got to keep working and it'll come to you.
With Mark, I've used this before about being the point guard, hit the open guy, don't worry about forcing it to this guy or that guy because human nature is you want everybody to be happy. You want to get certain balls — here is some to Dustin, here's some to Jerricho — but we've just got to throw it to the open guy. Let the coaches handle the playcalling, you run your route and you sell out for your teammates and good things will happen to this football team and I believe that.
