Rex Ryan Press Conference: Sun 8/16

Courtesy NY Jets PR Department

Transcript of Jets head coach Rex Ryan’s Sunday late-morning news conference:

I’d like to, after the press conference, take you over to watch some tape. Our mindset is we’re trying to build a football team and to be unselfish guys, to care about your teammates and to do things that maybe don’t show up on the stats but just doing things that I think will make us winners. I want to show you a few snaps. I put four plays of special teams, I probably should have made that two [laughter], four offense, four defense and then I put a couple bonus Bart Scott ones in there just so you get a different perspective and you get to see what I see and the things that we look for, things that we challenge our team to do. They won’t always be good plays, but for the most part they are. I put in [Mark] Sanchez’s deep pass and all that kind of stuff.

I just want you to get an idea of what I’m looking for and what I think a Jet is. Sometimes it’s recognizable. Sometimes a guy statistically won’t show up but he’s doing a good job and you’ll see why his play will allow other guys to make plays. It’s an unselfish thing. You can have a whole team of guys committed to doing 100 percent individually. They’ll give everything they have individually, but I’d rather have a group that gives that kind of effort collectively, guys who believe in the team. Guys who want to do things the right way for the team. If you’ve got that, I think you have a much better chance of winning than if you have guys who give 100 percent to themselves. That’s one of the things I try to sell to our guys. I want guys to give 100 percent to the football team. I think you’ll see some of those plays today when we get over there.

The quarterback situation you guys know. We knew going in, but I wanted to make sure, I checked with the doctors and the trainers to make sure there were no surprises and also let the quarterbacks know that Sanchez will start the game against the Ravens this week. As far as playing time, I’m not really ready to tell you exactly how many snaps. I know both of them will have a hell of a challenge this week. The whole team will. The Ravens are a great football team. Somebody said they watched tape of the Ravens-Redskins game and said there weren’t many new blitzes but they recognized a lot of things. They’re still dialing it up there. It’s going to be a great challenge and I’m really looking forward to it.

I thought today’s practice was outstanding. You come off a game, sometimes you come back and maybe your mentality isn’t set to have a long, hard practice and that’s what we did. I told the threes that I want to scrimmage almost every day this week with the third group to make sure they’re ready. Hopefully, we have everything ironed out where we’re not making the mental mistakes that we made in the game. That was embarrassing to me. That’s coaching as well. I put that on my plate and all of our coaches. We need to make sure that they’re representing the Jets in a better fashion than what we showed.

On if he will still name a starting quarterback by the third preseason game…

I wanted to play Sanchez more. It was good to see [Erik] Ainge have the kind of day he did, I think Erik played great. Hopefully, we’ll get an opportunity to see those guys a little more this week in game action. Again, I know I want to have it done then, but I’m not saying 100 percent it will be. I’m assuming it will, but I’m not going to guarantee that I will have it done by that time.

On if the plan had always been to start Sanchez for the second preseason game or if he has earned that role…

I think he earned the reps with the ones. It might have been down on paper that way in pencil, but he had to earn it. The guy had to earn his reps and I think he has done that. Without question, he has done that.

On injuries to the team…

Jehuu Caulcrick was out. He had an issue. He’s probably questionable for the game. I don’t know the severity of the injury. We’ll see. He probably will play. It’s one of those things where we’ll know later in the week. I think it’s a knee. It’s his left one. I think he did it in the third quarter when he came out.

The other guys are progressing slowly, painfully slowly, with [Kris] Jenkins and [Darrelle] Revis and, of course, [Damien] Woody and [Alan] Faneca. Faneca is going to be out this game for sure. He had surgery on it [finger]. Again, he could play with a cast on but we want to make sure it’s healed before we put him out there.

On the play of the reserve offensive linemen…

I thought it was great. We never got the movement they needed in the running game that I was hoping for and probably Thomas [Jones] was hoping for. When you consider you have three of your best players, three starting offensive linemen and your starting fullback out, I thought they held up well. I thought they did a great job. You can’t ask for much better than that. I thought our protection was great and we did a good job picking up blitzes. That first sack, [Leonard] Little is an outstanding pass rusher and its sometimes hard to get that on the practice field. I thought Wayne [Hunter] did a great job after that.

On starting offensive linemen returning…

I’m not real sure. It’s too early to tell. We have a Monday night game, so hopefully we can get some of those guys back.

On quarterbacks going against Baltimore’s defense…

If you could do anything against that bunch, you could move it against anybody. Baltimore and Pittsburgh have been the best defenses in this league for a long time. I’ve got confidence in our offense, but it’s going to be a great challenge. Yes, it would count for more than moving it against St. Louis. No disrespect to St. Louis but they aren’t the Ravens, they aren’t Pittsburgh. So, those would be the two measuring sticks I would think I’d have.

On after watching the tape if there was anything in Sanchez’s performance that wasn’t noted Friday night…

No, just that when you see the mouth guard fly out that’s kind of interesting [laughter]. But still to have the poise, he looks off the safety. We’ll show that play to you. He actually performed like I thought he would. He’s cool, he doesn’t get rattled and he just went in there and did a great job. He was part of the solution. His teammates worked and they drove it right down the field. Dustin Keller is pretty good. He’s not bad. I might throw to him myself [laughing]. Again, I was pleased with the way Sanchez performed. I was pleased with all three of the quarterbacks. I thought they all played well.

On the punting competition…

We tried [Ken Parrish] out today. Again, I’m tired of seeing ground balls hit. We’ve got to do better than that. Our guys know that so we’ll see. You watch some practices and you’re like ‘man we’ve got Ray Guy here.’ I want to see that. I want to see an NFL punt. Reggie [Hodges]’s numbers look good, but I don’t think those are exactly rockets that he hit. We’re going to find a punter. If he’s here or if he’s on somebody else’s team, we’ve got to find a punter. I don’t care where we go to get one. If he’s here, great, then step up and punt. If he’s not, then we’ll go find one.

On moving the linebackers around to give Bryan Thomas work at the strong side…

Yes. We’ve got to get him ready. He’s got to be ready to open up as our starting SAM and then we’ll get Vernon [Gholston] over there at the rush spot. Sometimes, I just don’t want to play Calvin [Pace] because you realize what you’re missing. He’s a heck of a football player. But again, we’ve still got to get him going as well. That way, when he comes back after week four then he’s ready to go. So we’re going to still play him a bunch in the preseason games and make sure his timing is right. Then he’s got to work like crazy when he’s off those four weeks that he can’t be around us. So, we’re definitely working him as well.

On Gholston’s performance during the first preseason game…

I realized he made two tackles and everybody wants to blame him. What I would like to do is sometimes look past the numbers and let’s see how the unit plays because sometimes you ask a guy, “Ok, you’ve got the dirty work here.” We used to do this with Jarret Johnson all the time. I’ll never forget Jarret Johnson won a game ball on defense and he had one assist. He was so mad but he had to do all the dirty work. And sometimes you ask guys to do different things. I think in Vernon’s case he probably had a couple of plays we wish he had back, but then he did some good things as well. He’s strong. You’ll see the sack that David Harris had. You’ll see why he gets it. It’s with the efforts of Vernon and B.T. Bryan Thomas. I think he’s coming, I really do.

On Harris’ performance during the first preseason game…

He’s a run-hit guy. He loves to play. I think he wishes it was a baseball schedule, 162 games. One of those types of deals because man, he can go. I think those two, right there, are going to be phenomenal together. Then you’ve got Bart [Scott]. He speaks a lot for both of them [laughter]. They counteract. We got that memo through the league. You take Bart then David’s got to be your other backer. I think you’ll enjoy watching Bart play as well. Statistically, I don’t know how many tackles he makes, he knocks the guard out, first play of the game, so you get to see that.

On Stanley Daniels not being at practice today…

Personal issue. We’ll let him deal with that. When he comes back, he’ll let you know. He was excused. He’ll probably be back later tonight.

On if Dwight Lowery will have a tough game…

He was out there at 7:30 this morning. He beat everybody out there. He’s working on his footwork. Every corner is going to get beat in this league. We don’t like it, but that’s the nature of the position. He’s got to step back up and battle through it. I have confidence in this young man. He had some things on his plate, some issues he was dealing with. I think it took away from some of his focus to the game, but he’s a guy that I certainly haven’t lost confidence in.

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