Rex, Sanchez Discuss Jacksonville; Plaxico Remains Positive

On Wednesday New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan addressed the media and answered several questions about Sunday’s match-up against the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Here are some of the notable quotes from the press conference:

On whether he worries about an emotional letdown after so much energy was invested in the Dallas game…

“In my strange math, this one counts as a game-and-a-quarter because it’s an AFC team. Your divisional games count as a game-and-a-half. For whatever reason, it always seems like when the tiebreakers come out, that math usually works. Now, of course, I should have known better because you guys are going to go back and say, “Well, it never really worked these five years,” so I appreciate that (laughter). I always think it did. This one is huge and this one is easy (to motivate the players) because all you have to do is pop on the tape from two years ago when we played Jacksonville. We pride ourselves on being a physical football team and all that. They handed it to us. They imposed their will on us. They ran the ball better than we did. They were more physical than we were. They came up with three turnovers, so this one won’t be hard to get our team up for. We know what happened the last time we played them. They beat us at our place, so we’ll let the video do most of the talking.”

On if he thinks it’s possible that the team could come out flat for Jacksonville…

“The last game was a very emotional game. There is no question about that, but when you look at it, this one is a huge game for us. I love the fact that we’re playing at home to feed off the energy of our crowd as well. I think that’s going to be huge for us. Like I said, when you see the tape and you get beat physically, the competitor in all of us would probably say, ‘Alright, let’s get back out there and let’s see what happens this time.’ Maurice Jones-Drew is a great back, so we better be ready to go or we’ll get embarrassed again.”

My thoughts: Rex is saying all of the right things but there has to be concerns with an emotional letdown for the Jets.  Last week’s atmosphere was very unique and the team will more than likely not come out with the same energy as a home opener in front of a national audience.  The key is for Rex and his staff to find a way to give the team an early spark on both offense and defense.

More from Rex Ryan:

On how Jacksonville will pressure the quarterback…

“Each game gives you different problems that you’ve got to look out. This team, their defensive tackles are big, strong guys. They don’t have to do a whole lot of pressure things. They’re very solid up front. They’ve got a veteran core of linebackers, and they’re doing a good job. Each week’s different. I know Dallas relied on a lot of pressure. That’s really not Jack (Del Rio)’s style as much. He’ll pressure you, but he doesn’t pressure the run as much as Dallas did. Sometimes if you do pressure, I think Jacksonville maybe gave up 8.5 yards a pass last year, which was one of the worst in the league. It’s a little give and take there. The thing Jacksonville did was bring in six veteran defensive players, so they’re kind of a different look right now.”

Sanchez talks Jags, letdown- On Wednesday New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez addressed the media and talked about the Jets upcoming game against the Jaguars.  Here are some highlights from his interview:

On if the Jaguars run more base defense than the Cowboys…

“It’ll be different, maybe not as exotic as a Ryan defense but still a tough, in your face (defense). Their front four, we faced Roth last year, and then they went out and got a bunch of defensive players, stud defensive players in the secondary and the linebacking corps. So, (Paul) Posluszny and (Clint) Session from Indianapolis that we played before. (Dawan) Landry from Baltimore and then obviously Dwight Lowery and Drew Coleman, guys we have a lot of respect for. We’re going to have our hands full. Whatever they run, it’ll be a good, tough defense for us.”

On if he thinks there will be a letdown after the Dallas game…

“I disagree, I think each week has its own storyline. This one being an AFC opponent, we’re putting a real big emphasis on playing at home and protecting our home stadium. And we can’t lose at home. We can’t. We want to get a home playoff game, and there’s no point in getting a home playoff game if you keep dropping games at home. It just doesn’t work. This has to be huge for us. We say it every week, must win, but this is a big one. And we know they’re tough. This is a disciplined team. They’re not going to have penalties. They’re not going to turn it over. They’re going to control the game by running the ball. So if you don’t sustain drives and convert on third down, you might not get the ball for another quarter. So we can’t have that, we have to be sharp.”

On whether the lack of touchdowns in the first quarter is pyschological…

“I don’t know if it’s psychological. Nobody thinks we’re going to come out and go three-and-out. I hope they don’t. That’s not the kind of team we have. We’ve been a slow-starting team, for 16 games, like you said. Something’s got to change, maybe it’s just our attitude. I think the play calling is fine. We just need to convert on third down, whether it’s me throwing a more accurate ball or not getting sacked on the first play, that kind of stuff. You take a sack, I think the stat is like, 12% of the time you’ll end up scoring a touchdown on that drive, so a sack is a drive killer. We can’t have negative plays on first down. We need to be much better on first down, to convert at least.”

Plaxico discusses working with Sanchez- On Wednesday New York Jets wide receiver Plaxico Burress discussed the progress that he is making with quarterback Mark Sanchez.

On Sanchez speaking to him and saying, “trust me”…

“I was just staying patient. I’ve been in games like that a few times in my career. You just keep working. It’ll come and as you can see, it did. We’ll just keep fighting, keep working for the quarterback and pretty soon he’ll find us. You just have to be patient, you can’t rush it. Dallas was doing some great things schematically and disguised some of the blitz packages that they were running. So it took us a little time to get adjusted to it, but we did and we made some plays into the blitz with Santonio (Holmes) and (Dustin Keller) making plays into the blitz. You have to be patient and know the coverages.”

On what he said to Sanchez during the game after Sanchez told him he would get him the ball…

“I just said, “Hey, just relax. Everything is going to be ok.” He was probably a little shocked at me saying that, but I was out there so I saw some of the blitzes and different things they were doing. (It was) the first game of the season, (so there were) new packages, things we weren’t used to or thought that Dallas was going to do. So we made the proper adjustments and when it came time to get guys involved we did and we made plays when we had to.”

My thoughts: The Jets offense as a whole is going to experience growing pains as it is very difficult to incorporate 2 new receivers with limited practice and no OTAs.  I think both Plaxico Burress and Derrick Mason understand this and will not be a distraction any time soon.

Jets make 3 roster moves: On Wednesday the Jets announced that they have signed wide receiver Patrick Turner to the active roster, and signed tight end Josh Baker and safety Andrew Sendejo to the practice squad.

Tyson Rauch

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