Brian Schottenheimer Interview Transcript 9/29/11

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

On whether you can still see Rex Ryan’s influence in the Ravens defense…

Yeah, I think so. A lot of the schemes are the same. They have excellent players. They are very well-coached. Definitely, there’s things that we see, that we’re like, “Okay, that’s this.” We obviously know what our guys call it now, because of going against it for a couple of years. You’re like, “Okay, yeah, I see that. Oh yeah, that would be Bart (Scott). Or that would be this, that would be that.” Absolutely. They’re like our defense. They disguise things well. They move around fast. They play at an excellent tempo.

On whether playing against a similar defense in practice will help…

I mean, it does, because we’ve seen a lot of these things. You’ve gone against a lot of them. I think that works on both sides. Obviously, our system is very similar to what Cam (Cameron) runs in Baltimore. You still have to go out and perform on Sunday night.

On how much of a challenge it is for Mark Sanchez to face a defense that is versatile in that atmosphere…

It is. It’s a great challenge. You look at their record at home, it’s like 20-5 or something. The crowd noise obviously helps them. They’re excellent up front. Extremely strong, great get-off. So it’s quite a challenge. As Mark (Sanchez) grows and gets more and more comfortable, he’s used to playing in big games, he’s used to playing against teams who do quite a bit of stuff. Things don’t catch him off guard as much as they used to.

On Sanchez having to account for Ed Reed…

We try to tell Mark, Ed is a guy who has a lot of freedom back there, a great player. (He) roams around a lot. He hasn’t played against Ed, but he’s played against guys that are similar, Troy (Polamalu) is very similar in Pittsburgh. They have a lot of freedom, they’ve been in the system a long time. Obviously, a great player, and we’ll be looking for him.

On assessing Sanchez’s play through three games…

I think he’s played well, with the exception of probably a dozen or so plays. With Mark, (he’s) such a perfectionist, he wants to be perfect. The interception last week is not what we expect from Mark. It’s not what he wants. We’ve continued to work through the competitiveness. I break out, there’s nobody’s open, I’ve got to say, “uncle.” We had the big punt return to get down there. That affects momentum. Other than probably, honestly, a dozen plays or so, I thought he’s played well.

On whether struggles running the ball are a result of the offensive line play or Shonn Greene’s performance…

I’ll be honest with you, when you look at the numbers, the numbers aren’t where they’ve been in the past. It’s not Shonn, it’s not just the offensive line. It’s a whole unit. We’re looking at a lot of different things. We’re looking at some of our core runs, and what are we really good at. We’ve talked a little bit about some Seminole stuff. That’s always been good. We have an idea of kind of what their checks would be versus Seminole. We’ve run the ball well in stretches. Last week was hard (to judge on). You come out of the game and the last nine or 10 minutes you’re in no huddle because you’re down two scores. It’s just hard to get in the flow. There’s been good stretches throughout the course of the season where we’ve hit some good runs. We just have to put more of those plays together back to back.

On whether it’s difficult to establish a run game when you want to keep your playmaking receivers on the field…

I wouldn’t say it’s difficult. I think it’s different. Obviously, running out of multiple receiver sets is different than always having two tight ends and two fullbacks and things like that, but it can certainly be done. You guys know how I feel about the staff, Bill (Callahan) and Anthony Lynn, those guys. We go in with great plans. Our guys work extremely hard. It just hasn’t paid the complete dividends that we expected it will in the near future. And it won’t be any easier this week. They’re excellent up front. They’re a force to be reckoned with.

On whether Sanchez’s competitiveness is something he may not be able to change, much like Brett Favre…

I don’t think so. I think that Brett (Favre) was awfully stubborn, and I got him really late, so I (couldn’t) change it. (joking) I really do think Mark has matured. You hate to see the one last week. He knew it. The thing was, he knew it. He knew it the minute he did it. He was like, “God, that was so dumb, I shouldn’t have done that.” It’s something that we have to continue to stay on him about. You can definitely learn that. I think being around some other quarterbacks. Drew (Brees) was that way. He got benched four or five times one year in San Diego for turning the ball over. It’s a maturity process. He doesn’t do it as much now as he’s done it before, in the past. I totally think he’ll get it, he’ll figure it out. Again, the fact that he knew it the minute he did it, makes me feel like, okay, we’re good, let’s move forward.

On why Santonio Holmes was only thrown two passes last game…

You guys know I always say this, “I want guys that want the ball.” We have huge plays and huge packages in for Santonio. You got to give the Raiders some credit with some of the things that they did to take him away. Once we got up on them, they started playing a lot of zone. We had hit kind of a stale spot. There were clearly some things that I wish we probably would’ve recognized as a staff quicker. Tone (Holmes) is a huge part of what we do. He’s a guy that we want to get the ball to. I feel like every week when I walk in there, there’s going to be a guy that’s disappointed, (because he) didn’t get enough balls. That doesn’t bother me. I want guys like that.

On whether he has noticed Holmes’ success against the Ravens in the past…

Absolutely. You can’t be a fan of the league to recognize a punt return here and a big touchdown to win the game a couple of years ago on fourth down. He’s a great player. He’s had success against a lot of teams. That doesn’t change the focus. It doesn’t change what we do. We go in with our plan. You don’t want to see Plax (Plaxico Burress) get shut out the week before. Sometimes it happens. The main thing we’re concerned about is not stats, it’s winning games.

On whether he spoke with Holmes about adjustments to the offense this week…

He and I talk all the time. I talk to all the players just about different things. One of the things about being around a guy for a second year is our relationship is so good that we could talk about things. I knew he was frustrated and I get that. The beautiful thing about it is we were all here last year for the three or four games that he helped us win. Believe me, it’s something that we want to do. I’ve talked in here, it’s something that I can think about, but it’s nothing that the quarterback needs to worry about. He needs to go through his reads and throw it to the open guy and not force the ball to anybody. We have good players. They’ll get open and when they get open, they’ll get the ball.

On Derrick Mason and his role thus far…

I’ll tell you what, I think he’s had a great week of practice. Obviously he’s extremely motivated this week going against his old team. I think there is a comfort level now with him with the system where he’s feeling really good, moving him around to different spots and stuff, but again (he’s) just another great player that I think you saw late in that game last week he stepped up and did some really good things for us, made a couple big plays late in the game in the two-minute drive and again, I know one thing, we feel very comfortable and Mark feels great and he sees (Santonio Holmes) on one side with (Plaxico Burress) and Mason is on this side, he has Keller and Shonn and (LaDainian Tomlinson). We feel pretty good about that because we know we have good players.

On Burress’ blocking…

Well, it’s funny because you know he’s a big guy, but I didn’t know him for being a great blocker. But it’s been every game, we do a thing where we always pull physical plays out of the gameplan. There’s always been a clip or two. I think the peel back block that he had the other day was great. He got Mike Jenkins in the opener. It’s been a very pleasant surprise. He just loves to play, he’s truly a joy to be around on gameday. He just loves to play. He loves to compete and you see that fire in him.

On success running to the outside against the Ravens…

Obviously (the Raiders are) extremely big inside with (Tommy) Kelly and (Richard) Seymour, but they played a lot of man-to-man and things like that and we have backs that can run on the perimeter. And so, we did a nice job a couple times of kind of getting the thing washed out from the outside-in and getting the backs out in space. That helps, but again it’s a weekly gameplan thing, but we were very pleased with our perimeter runs.

On the matchup at center…

Well, I think Colin (Baxter) is learning awfully fast that in this league, every week is going to be a challenge. You go from Richard Seymour and Tommy Kelly to Haloti (Ngata) and they’ll move all those guys around. The thing I’ll say, it was fun to watch Colin play. He battled his tail off, he did a terrific job in there. It was fun to watch him compete. And there was a play I know late in the game where we threw a little under route to Derrick Mason and he and Brandon Moore, and the Raiders kind of had Mason—they were holding him up, and they (Baxter and Moore) just kind of came down and just kind of blew up the pile. He plays extremely hard and if he plays it’ll be another great matchup for him.

Tyson Rauch

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