Transcript of Jets head coach Rex Ryan's midday news conference following Thursday's morning training camp practice:
Today was dominated by the defense. We had a practice schedule, the offense had a little bonus work to go over their third downs, but it was really dominated by the defense.
I did talk to Tony Dungy and he's going to take me up on the offer. He hasn't set a date yet, but he's excited to come out and see us and we're excited to have him.
We had a little thing with Brian Jackson. They tied him to the goalpost, which is a training camp tradition. It happens to a lot of rookies. I heard he was taking it personal. I've seen way worse than that. We all saw the Tim Tebow haircut. That would have been a disaster for most guys. I haven't talked to Brian yet, but I heard he's taking it as a personal thing, which is unfortunate. I'll get a chance to talk to him.
On his conversation with Dungy…
I just felt that I wanted him to know how I felt. We talked man-to-man. He told me his position and I definitely told him my position. He knows some people that I know. There are a lot of positive things being said about me. I'm glad he asked that particular person about me [laughter]. We'll just leave it at that and I look forward to having him come up and seeing what we are all about.
On previously meeting Dungy…
No, I've never met him. We've gone against each other, but I've never met him.
On the type of conversation he had with Dungy…
It was definitely heated [joking]. No, I didn't know if I was emotional, but some people reported that I was emotional yesterday. I don't recall that. I was maybe more emotional in this conversation than I was [yesterday]. We talked man-to-man and it was good.
On how the team has improved since the start of training camp…
Our defense looked great today. We have to go play. Let's see if we've improved since last week's performance. The backups I would assume will be better — it has to be, it needs to be. The biggest thing I see is Mark [Sanchez]'s improvement. He's improved everywhere, every facet of the game, his knowledge of the offense, being able to read defenses, knowing where the hots are and how to check the ball down. I think he's definitely improved his game. His accuracy has always been his strength, but he's even better now.
On checkdowns being part of the offense…
That is something we thought we really lost when Leon [Washington] went down for the season. You can still check it to Shonn [Greene] or to Thomas [Jones], but having LaDainian [Tomlinson] back there gives you a lot of options. He's one of the premier receivers in the game and I have a feeling he's also a great running back. That will be a huge upgrade for us. The way Mark communicates with those guys now is with great confidence in his receivers. Braylon [Edwards]! How about that catch he made today? That was ridiculous. I was calling it out-of-bounds. I said, "There's no way he was inbounds," but yes, he was. Braylon has been phenomenal, just seeing the improvement that he has made, learning all of the positions.
Santonio [Holmes] told me that in Pittsburgh he only learned one position, and you can game-plan that position. Right now, he's challenging himself to try and learn everything. So it's easy to say, "Braylon, I want you to play the X and I want Santonio to play the Z. Of course, Jerricho knows all that. You can't dial us in like you can a lot of times against people. Flexibility, knowing the system, and the fact that Santonio has come in and really humbled himself and took to Schotty [Brian Schottenheimer] and [WRs coach] Henry Ellard, "I want to learn this system." He's a great route runner and an explosive receiver. The combination of those three guys ... and then [Laveranues] Coles today came out and made some big catches. That's veteran presence. We are really where I was hoping to be.
On the decision to draft Joe McKnight…
Generally, you can't always find out how you won or lost. Let's let a season happen, or a couple of seasons, and we'll see how that trade works out. Clearly, Leon was a great player before he got hurt and I hope he's a great player now. I think Joe has a ton of ability. Leon might not have been as explosive his first year, [but] let the year go on.
I think this guy is going to get better. He has to learn in the NFL you're not going to get those home runs. It's OK to hit a single. A single might be a 4-yard run and we'll take that. If there's nothing there, you have to take the 3 or 4 yards. You can't expect that there's going to be this big gaping hole. Obviously you saw him today, he bounced the run out and went for 25 yards. He has that kind of ability. Those runs aren't always going to be there. In fact, seldom are they going to be there.
On the negative perception of McKnight in the locker room…
I think that's pretty unfair to say. Everyone's personality is different. The great thing about the locker room is you respect everyone in there. There are guys with different religious beliefs, different personalities, funny guys, ugly guys and all of those kind of things. That's what makes a locker room. Joe doesn't have to be Leon. Joe can just be himself and he's just fine.
On if he expects McKnight to run inside…
Yes, I expect him to run inside. He has to. Run inside, run outside. If all we did was run him on the perimeter, people thought the same thing about Chris Johnson early in his career, that he just was a perimeter runner. How good is he now? He runs inside, he runs outside. I'm not comparing him to Chris Johnson, I think that might be a little bit of a stretch, but Joe's got so much talent, I think it's just a matter of time.
On McKnight in college…
At USC, he was one of the only backs to gain 1,000 yards. That string had gone a long time and then Joe was the guy that rushed for 1,000. He did rush between the tackles. His mentally just has to be "go," just get what you can and hit it up in there. He's not a small guy, he's 208 pounds. Sometimes you just take those 3 yards and eventually you keep popping it in there and you come out the other end.
On new LB Boris Lee…
Bart [Scott] was saying that he was Russian. I don't know if he's Russian. His name is Boris, but you have to ask Bart about that. The one thing is he and "the Terminator" [John Conner] butted heads in the hole and I was like, "Yeah, the kid will hit." So that was good to see. Great thing is as soon as we got him, with our depth at inside linebacker, we were like, "All right, kid, you're starting this week." We're going to see plenty of Boris this week against Carolina.
On Kenwin Cummings…
He made a couple of nice plays in that Giant game as well. He's doing well. He is moving much better than he did. This guy was a transition from a down defensive lineman in college to an inside linebacker. It's probably not an easy thing to do. I think now he's ready to take that role and he is doing a decent job on teams. That's obviously going to be critical, the way he plays on special teams.
On why Cummings was held out of the morning practice…
Well, I think there have been like nine "Iron Jet" winners, and he was one of them. I let them pick a practice that they could miss. So, you had [Jamaal] Westerman out today, Cummings out today and Brad Smith. Kroul also.
On building a strong foundation in camp like last season…
Tonight will be a big night for us. We have one more practice and then we have our rookie show, "King Ugly," Jeopardy. We even have a magician coming. We have it all going tonight. That's going to be good. Then, we are going to release them after that. They'll have a later curfew. We don't care what they do. They can have a Bible study, drink beer, go shoot pool, go to a movie, but you have to do something with a teammate. That's all we ask for this last night.
On how the family atmosphere helps on the field…
It's hard to let go of that rope, and I think that's what this team is. You look at it, we were a resilient team, and we said that last year. The only team in NFL history, somebody told me, that had two three-game losing streaks and still made the playoffs. I think that speaks about the type of players we have, the kind of locker room we have and how the guys feel about each other. This is a new year, but I feel this is a close football team.
On any scratches for Saturday's game…
Not yet, but I'm still waiting to see [Brashton] Satele, I'm still waiting to see [Joshua] Mauga. I'm hoping they could play. But, they still haven't been able to practice.
On Satele's condition…
He's still kind of gimpy.
On if he has any early projections on "King Ugly"…
There's a lot of good candidates out there. But I don't think it's right to say who I'll be voting for. Mike Pettine did get second place last year.* *
On if the starters will only play a quarter against Carolina…
Yes, I think that's it, no more. That will be about it. Last week we mentioned what our plan was. I think the Giants had a very similar plan because I think we played three more plays than they did with the starters. But that's the deal, that's how we're going into this game, so it's really flipped how you would play the game.
On if some of the veterans will see more playing time Saturday…
Definitely. Coles is definitely going to play a lot more. [Mark] Brunell will get some series. But the starters will mainly go for a quarter and that's it.
On comparing last year's camp to this year's…
Much smoother this year in the fact that last year we didn't have a [grass] field for five or six days. We were on that turf the whole time. And then we finally got the field, we had the helicopters hovering over them, we had a lot of rain, but we made it work. It was good to us, it really was.
This year, the way we have our meetings, the meeting rooms are set up right by the dorms. That was much better. Last year it wasn't really ideal. The meetings were set about halfway in between the dorms and the practice field. It works out much better now. This is as good as I've ever been around.
On having players instigate fights with one another…
I don't really know what you're talking about [laughter]. Rob Turner's a perfect guy to do it. What happens is sometimes you like to see if a guy will fight back. Sometimes that's all a guy needs to know, that he can do it. Like this guy right here, who would want to fight Vernon Gholston? Gholston is strong as an ox and I think now he's realizing it. Whatever it takes to get the guys to play to their ability is what we'll do.
On if he had to coax Turner into the fight…
Of course not. Rob will go at him in two seconds. Rob would say, "Circle it up. Let's go again." Guys have roles and an NFL fight is just something that's good to see guys do. You have to have that kind of warrior mentality, and sometimes you don't know what other people see. We see that this guy [Gholston] is a big, strong, physical person. But sometimes you don't visualize yourself that way.
Now I know Vernon sees it. Vernon's knocking people around. He almost had a sack [against the Giants]. I think if Jason [Taylor] would have kept that edge a little bit more, he probably would have had that sack. He beat a guard clean, head-faking. The beauty of what I'm seeing from Vernon is that you can play him inside, you can play him outside. He's so much more confident now with his pass rush. I'm excited about the way he's playing.
On how he's improved as a coach from last year…
I think my language is better [laughs]. I'm able to sit back and pull myself away from things more than I did. I allow myself to do that. Knowing that I've got a great coaching staff, it allows me to sit back and not enjoy it but move around more freely and help out where I need to. If I need to go there, I'm there for all my coaches. If a guy thinks I can be a benefit by talking to somebody, then I will. It's great. I enjoy it. Like yesterday, I go out for special teams practice, I wasn't even on the field the whole day. There goes [Mike] Westhoff and [Ben] Kotwica, they're doing a great job. I'm doing a better job of staying out of the way, I think.
On what the players will miss most about camp…
I think people have opened their arms to us here. Everyone treats us great. That's something that will be missed. They're going to be excited, to be honest with you, to leave just because they get around their families and the two-a-days and all that stuff is over with. Really, this has been a great experience, I'm sure for all of them. The way everything is set up, the facilities, the people here, this is really as good as it gets for any type of training camp.
On if he's seen a rejuvenated Kris Jenkins…
No doubt. In fact, I think he's better this year than he was last year, the way he approaches practices and the way he's working. He and [Nick] Mangold, they get after it all the time. These guys are making each other better. There's very few that can hold their own with Kris and Nick happens to be one of them. They go at each other and it's "I got you, you got me." They're working hard against each other.
The way he has approached it, his thing is he's trying to get better fundamentally. When you have a veteran who is willing to accept coaching, willing to do things and look at himself critically from a technique standpoint, he's willing to improve, regardless of his age. That's what you're seeing. We are seeing a phenomenal Kris Jenkins and he was phenomenal to begin with. He's really become a better technique player, which is scary for the league, I would think.
On if Jenkins' health sparks his play…
I think so. The fact that he's got his weight down, I think that's really a positive. He's feeling good about himself. He's able to move. He looks like a young guy out there.
On his not having to work as hard this year at proving himself…
I wasn't really worried about selling myself. I think I did have a decent reputation when I got here about being able to build a defense. I think I might have opened their eyes a little bit to what the possibilities could be and that if we really put our minds to it we could be special on defense. We were. Those were our expectations and we fulfilled those.
I see the same thing this year, that I think we could really do some great things for that defense. This is a top-notch defense. Is it a Super Bowl defense? Well, a lot goes into that. I don't know if it's a Super Bowl defense. I know one thing: Is there any defense in the league better than this defense? I'd say you'd be hard-pressed to find one. Our players know it.
You've got to hit the field, though, and get it done. You have to get it done on the field. You can't just get it done in the classroom. It has to be done on the field. I think our guys have accepted that. That's the new standard here. We set a standard that's going to be here for years to come.
