Brian Schottenheimer interview transcript 12/3/10

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

On Mark Sanchez being critical on himself after the game…

“I remember I texted him after the game to say, ‘Hey, how (are) you doing,’ because I saw, obviously, that he was upset, and knew that he expects more of himself. So, I just texted, ‘How are you doing?’ He said, “I’m doing all right.” He kind of laid out some things, “I missed this. I missed that. I shouldn’t have done that”. I know he was thinking about it a lot. I know his family is in town, so I know he enjoyed a little bit of time with his family, and he was in the next day, if not Friday, I know he was Saturday, because he sent me a text saying, “Hey, I saw the film.” Usually (he sees the film) not as good or as bad, but he (said), “Yeah, it’s pretty bad.” Again I think the fact that Mark expects so much from himself, and because of the way he’s been playing, I think it just kind of caught him off guard. “What did I do, what did I miss.” Just some things with his footwork that he missed, some completions that he missed, that he has not done in the past. The best news is he played that way and we were able to win the game. The short week, it’s different for him preparation wise. Things get thrown at him so much. If you remember last year, preparing for the Buffalo game, he was hurt the week before. We found that out, you know, talking to him during the week so he was actually here all weekend. We went down and played Tampa, so he was here all week preparing so this was different for him. He took some things from it and he’s been really good this week, real crisp.”

On his ability to perform in big games…

“I kind of started to notice that a little bit last year, to be honest with you, in the playoffs. He’s one of those guys that kind of goes on emotion and I can kind of tell during pregame warm-ups when he’s really dialed in. I remember in the San Diego game, I think it was during warm ups he would make a throw and look at me like, did you see that. And just in a good way. Like, hey, I feel good today. But again, I think he proved that, last year, around this time is when he got really hot and we needed him to play well and he did and he pushed us into the playoffs. I think he’s very comfortable with that big stage and the big lights on him.”

On LaDainian Tomlinson’s memories of playing against the Patriots…

“I’m sure, I don’t know if I was there when he had the bad game. I’m going to say a positive thing. Last time I remember going there with the Chargers we beat them, they had won like 19 straight or something and we beat them. You know, the thing about LT is he understands and he can compare it to other rivalries, like maybe he had in San Diego with the Chiefs and the Raiders. It doesn’t take much to be around this facility and this team to know that this is a huge rivalry. I always love LT, because when you play on the road, he’s the guy when the crowd is getting loud he is always the guy that’s asking for them to be louder. That’s just kind of the way he sees things. It’s not about what you guys are going to do. It’s about us. I think he’s picked up quickly on the fact that this is a big rivalry.”

On why Tomlinson would want the crowd to be louder…

“I think it’s LT’s way of saying, it doesn’t matter. Just watch him. It’s funny. I remember him doing it in San Diego, maybe it was our first road game, but it got loud at some point. Denver, for a fact, I remember. I was watching him playing, I kind of saw him doing this (makes a hand gesture), but that’s what he’s always done. I think you have to ask him, but I think it’s because it doesn’t matter, make it as loud as you want and we are still going to go and have success. Hopefully Mark doesn’t see him doing it, because if he’s looking back there that much, there’s usually some confusion going on. So I don’t know if he is aware that he does that.”

On trying to get the offense started in the first quarter…

“It’s definitely something that we have looked at. One of the things that we have looked at obviously is third down. You have to be able to convert third downs, and we’ve been hit-or-miss on some third downs earlier in the game, and what we do, obviously we have our openers and we have our plays that we script. One of the things that we have talked about (is) trying to get those and walk through them and get them to the guys a little earlier. A lot of it has been execution, something here and there. Third down would be one that I would say and, quite honestly, we have had some long fields to go. We defer so much because of our defense, that sometimes we get backed up quite a bit, so we have to be willing to go the long road and we definitely know that we need to start games faster.”

On when they normally practice their scripted plays for the upcoming game…

“Usually we practice them on like always on Saturday, usually we will get a couple on Friday but now we’re trying to get them a little earlier. This has been a strange week but (we will) try to get through most of them tomorrow.”

On if he sees Joe McKnight getting any more carries this season…

“Yeah, we are rolling Joe through in practice. He’s still a young player. But I think you see what he’s done on special teams. I mean, I know he’s making a lot of progress there. But he’s sitting behind two pretty good tailbacks, so we are prepping him. He’ll be ready if he gets his number called. But we are not sitting around at night saying, hey, we have got to get the ball to Joe. But it’s all about Joe’s preparation, he’s spending a lot of time with Anthony (Lynn) and making sure he’s up to speed with the package and he’s done a really good job. Hopefully, he continues to grow.”

On if the offense will be affected by any players seeing more time on special teams…

“No, with as many guys as we have, you have enough guys and there are so many personnel groupings that we can pull from. We know how good we are on special teams, so anyway we can help, those guys will never question trying to get the ball in their hands or doing different things. I saw Cromartie last week on special teams. Guys understand that. If you want to be good on special teams, you have to be willing to let your starters go out there and do some stuff and those guys do a great job for Mike (Westhoff).”

On his confidence in matching New England’s offense…

“First thing I’ll say with our defense, we are a little different than most people. But what we have shown in some of the games recently, even though we have waited until the last moment to do it, we can play any type of game we need to play. If we need to come back from 10 with four minutes to go against Detroit, we are able to do that. We hope the game does not end up developing that way but we are comfortable offensively. Other than last week, missing some things a little bit in the passing game, we feel very comfortable with where we’re at as we move forward through the season. However the game unfolds, the big thing for us will be ball security. One thing, you look at their defense, they have done a really good job with Coach Belichick and (Defensive Coordinator) Matt Patricia of creating turnovers and that’s the thing we have to make sure (of). That’s what we did not do last game. We didn’t give them anything. I think we had no turnovers and two offensive penalties because this team does not beat themselves. They are very well-coached and fundamentally sound. We just have to make sure that we don’t give them anything easy.”

On the confidence he has in the offense coming from behind…

“(It) makes you feel good but then you also want to go back and say, ‘Why do we even get into that situation?’ We need to perform better, and where we have to challenge the guys, obviously, is in the red zone. We’re still chipping away at that. We are moving the ball really well from the 30, to, say the 50 and even the plus 40 and then we are kind of getting held up there a little bit. So there are situationally, things we have to do better. Obviously, our two-minute offense has been good. We’ve been able to come from behind like that, but we just need to clean up some of the situational stuff. It has not been as much first and second down, it’s been more third down and red zone that we need to get better at.”

On the team’s low red zone efficiency…

“You start by looking at what you’re doing. ‘Am I doing something different than I did in the first couple of games when we were doing really well?’ The answer to that is not really. So you just have to look at that. You have to look at where are the errors coming from and try to coach those things better and again, just make an emphasis on that area. We have not really done anything different, but you know, Matt Cavanaugh presents the red zone and he just lays out, “Hey, here is what happened last week and here is where we are.” Obviously, you see how the game turned out and it could have turned out a different way if we would have done this. I know we talked about that against Cleveland and so we just try to show the guys what happened and explain, hey, look, it’s the red zone, it’s pretty important, it’s talking about points. Make them understand that we are in this situation now, and we have to tighten up the execution.”

On “Matt Cavanaugh presents the red zone” sounding like a television show…

“I think he would like that show. I’ll take it back to him.”

On comparing Mark Sanchez and Tom Brady’s performances against Detroit…

“Yeah, again, I don’t think you want to compare Mark and Tom. I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. Mark is a guy that is continuing to go grow. Tom Brady has been in the same system for a long time. Mark is going into his 27th, 28th start. I think it points to Mark’s composure that he’s able to function, and bring us back in a situation like that. We all know Tom Brady is a great quarterback, but I feel pretty proud of the fact that Mark has beaten him two out of three times.”

On working in more of the two-minute offense…

“Absolutely. We talk about that, I think I mentioned this two weeks ago, it’s always on a ready list for us. We talk about it. We work it usually every two weeks or so in terms of just as a base offense, so it’s there if we need it. You know, nothing has changed this week. It’s there if we need it. Usually you’ll get different defenses (during the two-minute) than you would earlier in the game, if you threw it out there on first or second down, but it’s in our arsenal if we need it.”

On what the downside is to running the two-minute offense more…

“It all depends. As long as you’re executing, I don’t think there’s any downside to it at all, so the way we have executed it would be fine. You’re going to either wear yourself out or the defense out so you hope to wear the defense out and not yourself.”

Tyson Rauch

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