Brian Schottenheimer interview transcript 10/28/10

On Thursday New York Jets offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer addressed the media.  Here is the transcript courtesy of the Jets.

On Mark Sanchez’s struggles in the Denver game…

“Obviously, he didn’t play his best game. I think he knows that. We know that. Anyone who watched the game knows that. There were some things with his decision-making. Denver adjusted. You have to give them some credit. They did a couple of things up front. They changed kind of their coverage schemes and their fronts that they played. A lot of it was just simple, fundamental things, not listening to his feet, when to stand in, when to leave, not hanging on his back foot and waiting for a guy to separate. It was the first game in a while where I think he kind of was looking to run, make plays and scramble around, whereas in the past, he’s been kind of working his progression and then getting to the outlet. He didn’t do that.”

On if he can put his finger on why he had a bad game at Denver…

“It happens. You don’t, obviously, want it to become something that happens every week, but I really can’t put my finger on it. It was a big game. It was really loud. I think that he was kind of pressing a little bit. I can’t figure out why. He threw the interception early. That was a really bad decision. He’d like to have that one back, obviously. The one the guy (Syd’Quan Thompson) made a great play on, was the second interception. The thing that he did was he kind of worked through the problems and he made some big plays down the stretch. There was a big third-down throw to Santonio (Holmes) on our boundary and a big third-down throw to Braylon (Edwards). He fixed the problem. It wasn’t his best game, but he fixed the problem and we were able to win.”

On if Santonio Holmes is getting into the flow of the offense…

“I think so. He’s not thinking as much as was the case for the first week or two weeks. Here’s a guy that’s extremely instinctive. He thinks the game (through) all the time. I see him talking to all the players, to Mark (Sanchez), to the coaches, to Henry (Ellard) (and) all those guys. I see him getting into the flow a little bit more. Last week, it was a situation where we didn’t use as much of the eleven package early, which obviously, he starts in that. I think he is getting better. He’s getting more comfortable with the system, which is going to make him play faster. It’s funny, you go back and you look at it, there were a couple of plays there where (they called) the OPI (offensive pass interference) penalty down the boundary, he made a great play. I know they called pass interference on him, but the guy is a tremendous playmaker. I think he’s just scratching the surface of what he’s going to do for us here.”

On Henry Ellard as the wide receivers coach…

“He’s outstanding. Henry is one of those types of guys that guys always respect. Every year in training camp, Rex (Ryan) shows a video of all the coaches when they were playing, some where they were signaling, like myself, on the sideline. Henry is one of the guys whose clips are always the longest because he was such a great player. (He is) a great technician, in terms of top of the route techniques, what he’s teaching, how to get off the ball and the guys really respect him because of what he did. I don’t know his numbers, but (it was) something like 17,000 yards or something crazy like that. He manages those guys really well. I think you see with the development of some of the guys, like I see Patrick Turner and some of those guys who have only been here a few weeks now, and they’re doing a great job on the scout team and getting mixed in some with some of the things that we’re doing. He does a great job. Isaac Bruce, I was with St. Louis for one year, said he was the best receivers coach he ever had. That was a huge recommendation and we brought him in to interview him.”

On if he ever got grief from players because of who his father is…

“Not the players. I think the players and the people involved in the business, they know if you’re good at your job, if you’re bad at your job, if you’ve been hired because of your name and your relationship with your boss or whether you truly have some ability. You get the naysayers in the media and the fans, but never from the players.”

On if he ever got grief from coaches…

“I don’t think so. I think if you do a good job, the people in the business know if you’re good or if you have a promising future. I think the one thing, when you’re a coach’s kid, you take a lot of pride in the profession. I know I had, and still do, take a lot of pride in my last name and what my father accomplished. I want to, not follow in his footsteps, but obviously, protect his legacy by making him proud.”

On if he took his first NFL job with the St. Louis Rams to purposely not coach under his father…

“I really did. Crazy enough, I thought when I was getting into coaching, I figured I would have a thousand opportunities because it’s all about who you know. I remember sending out resumes to all thirty-whatever teams at the time, and I was shocked because I only received about five responses. I was floored because I thought with the name Schottenheimer, you’ll at least get a letter back or a call. I had a couple of opportunities, but that was absolutely the reason. I wanted to start with somebody different. Dick Vermeil, the year I graduated, was the year that he was coming out of broadcasting. At the time I was at Florida, he and Brent Musberger were doing all the games because we won the national championship so we were a top team, and I think he was on the number one crew. He and I would talk every Wednesday about the games that he was doing and I just kind of gave him insight on what we were doing. That’s how Dick and I got to know one another.”

On Green Bay’s “psycho” defense…

“What it’s designed to do is to kind of screw up your number count. You’re trying to get an idea of, ‘Ok, this guy is the mike.’ Everything kind of works off of that. It’s tough (and) it’s difficult. They do a good job. I have a lot of respect for Dom (Capers) and everyone on their staff there. It makes it hard. One of the good things is we are playing at home. It helps, we can use our cadence. What it does is everything happens on the fly, where the backs are really having to work and they’re scanning things. It makes the backs slower to get out, because they’re wondering. Usually, if they see a clear point, they know, “Ok, if this guy doesn’t come, I can get out.” With this, they have to work their eyes a little bit more.”

On if the “psycho” defense will affect Sanchez reading the defense…

“Not as much (because) he feels voids more than anything. He has to be alert for some of his cues and adjustments to protection, but it doesn’t affect him as much as it would affect the guys up front and the backs.”

On what he sees from Clay Matthews on film…

“(I see) a great football player. He probably plays as hard, if not harder, than anyone I’ve seen this year. (He’s) just tenacious (and) has a great first step. He’s getting outweighed by 100, 150 pounds in some cases and he’s just a relentless pass rusher (and) very smart. (He’s) just a great football player, that trust me, we’ll have eyes on at all times.”

On Matt Slauson’s development…

“He’s gotten better every week. We’re asking him to do more stuff now than we were. There were some things we were doing early in the season where were sending a lot of help to him, but quite honestly, we’re away from a lot of that stuff. You see a guy playing with more confidence. The one thing with Slaw that showed up a little bit throughout the spring and training camp was that he tends to get overextended at times, and guys can get by him with a quick move. He’s much more balanced now and he’s playing with his feet up underneath him. I think that comes from the fact that he and Bill (Callahan) have spent so much time working together.”

On having Jerricho Cotchery as a stabilizing force in the receiving corps…

“It’s priceless. I laugh because sometimes Rex will come over, we’ll be breaking the huddle and J-Co is sometimes the last one out of the huddle. Rex grabbed me on one play and said, “Why is J-Co last?” If you watch, he’s telling everybody what to do. Braylon had to come out for a play last game because he got dinged on something, so Santonio came in and actually had to run a play he hadn’t run all week. J-Co was telling him what to do, “Hey, go there, here’s what you have.” It’s priceless. He’s the rock of that group and I don’t know what we would do without him.”

On if Cotchery tells Sanchez what to do…

“I hope not. I’m not asking. I don’t want the answer to that question (joking).”

On what happened on Sanchez’s first two throws against Denver that were almost intercepted…

“The first pass that we called, he couldn’t find his second progression. He had a little push in his face and he got flushed to his right and just made a terrible decision. He was scrambling and you never throw the ball back inside. It should’ve been intercepted for a touchdown, really inexcusable. The second one, he was late getting his eyes over there. The DB kind of squatted on it and he never saw the guy squat, so he had to get his eyes over there quicker. (It was) just two self-inflicted wounds. He did it to himself.”

On the Syd’Quan Thompson interception…

It’s a concept we run a lot, out of a three-by-one, and they played the play. Without going into too much (detail), the guy saw Jerricho go vertical. He passed him off and trapped. Most people don’t trap with the slot guy and he trapped it, fell off it and Mark never saw him.”

On if Sanchez expected Thompson to follow another receiver…

“Yes, and he (Thompson) didn’t. It was something that we talked about this week where we have to have more compliments off of that route because they clearly played the play, if you will. I have to take some of that because we have to have more compliments off of that formation.”

On Cotchery’s yards per catch average being so low…

“Obviously, because he plays inside so much on third-down and the slot, he does less stuff up the field. Dustin’s kind of taken the things that are the vertical routes. A lot of that’s more so because we trust J-Co so much and he reads things so well. Again, I still think those numbers will go up. He’s a guy that catches a lot of those balls and last year in the Miami game, he had a couple of big runs after the catch. I think those numbers will balance out. I think it’s just kind of where we are now, and I think at the end of the year, I think the bounce back up to where they (have been).”

On getting the numbers up in the passing game…

“We, obviously, need to get better throwing the football. I think pass protection has been great, so that hasn’t been a part of it. We need to throw more completions, and we’ve talked to Mark about that this week. You go back and it’s been different things. We had four or five drops against Minnesota. A lot of those were on third-down. The timing, guys getting out of breaks, (Sanchez) anticipating things and making good decisions, all those things can improve and that’s what we’ve been working on this week. We’re, again, going to play a team that plays a lot of man-to-man. They’re going to challenge you. It’s hard to throw a lot of completions with in-your-face pressure and man-to-man (coverage), unless you get separation. That’s the charge. We have to play fast, we have to get separation and Mark has to throw it accurately again this week to have success.”

On when Green Bay uses the “psycho” defense…

“A lot of it is (on) third-down. You’ll see some of it in two-minute (drills), but they’ll spring it some on first and second-down. For the most part, it’s a third-down defense. They’re interchangeable. They’re walking all around. It’s something that you see half a dozen times a game, maybe a little bit less depending on how it’s working.”

On what he saw in self-scouting during the bye week…

“We talked a little bit about the passing game. Again, that carries over to third-down. We’ve had a couple of games where we’ve been really good on third-down and a couple of games where we’ve been really poor. That primarily speaks to the passing game and having to improve that. I think getting Santonio back, that’ll help. A lot of things that came out were tendencies that I have, play-calling, which I’m obviously not going to share with you guys. There’s a number of things, a fingerprint, that I need to adjust and fix.”

On if he needs to mix up his play-calling a bit more…

“Yeah, there’s tendencies like maybe if it’s after a first down, what do you do? What do you do in the red zone? After an incompletion on first-and-ten, what do you do? Those are things that you check, but during the course of a week, you only have so many hours in a day. We look at them, but over the bye, you have a couple of days where you can actually truly study it and kind of get it right in your mind.”

Tyson Rauch

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