Mike LaFleur on James Robinson & Elijah Moore

NY Jets offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur spoke to the media on Thursday. He covered several topics but James Robinson and Elijah Moore are what every Jets fan is thinking about right now.

James Robinson (what does he bring)

It’s funny, I’ll answer that question in a second. We had a lot of crossover with Jacksonville for some reason last year. I remember we played Cincinnati in about Week Seven or something like that, and Jacksonville played Cincinnati in Week Five on a Thursday night. So, you really got to examine that game. I remember him standing out, just his demeanor when he runs the football. He doesn’t mess around. He puts his foot in the ground. He gets north and south. As far as the man and the character, you guys will get to know him. I got so many texts after Joe (Douglas) made the move about what kind of guy he is and what he’s going to do for this building in such a positive way. Real excited to have him, I thought it was a great job by Joe and his staff.

Three Man Rushing Attack?

It could. That kind of organically happened because of, unfortunately, the game and injuries. It started out as heavy Matt Brieda with a little bit of Tevin. By about Week Seven or so, Matt was really struggling with some injuries and that’s where Raheem got his opportunity. Raheem carried the ball a little in the first part of the year, but then in the back part of the year had over 1,000 yards over eight games and really sprung. Tevin kind of was a fixture throughout and would have periodic where he would miss a game or miss a half with a little nick. With backs, you never, obviously, want injury. It is part of the sport, somewhat part of playing that position. You want to keep them as fresh, and again, I won’t use the Golden State analogy, but whoever has the hot hand, you try to roll with.

Michael Carter 

He’s a pro. He wants to win. I probably have as much dialogue with Michael Carter for a lot of reasons. I have more respect for him as a human than I do as a player and a coworker. He’s handling it like a professional, and he just wants to do his job and help contribute to win football games.

Elijah Moore

Good. It’s good to have him back in the building. I know he’s happy to be back and ready to go. I’m excited to have him back.

Rich Cimini, ESPN.com: What happened between you two before practice last Thursday? Elijah, I’m referring to. 

I don’t totally know what you’re talking about.

Rich Cimini, ESPN.com: (follow up) Obviously, he was sent home for a few days to cool down. 

I heard there was some sort of blow up. The only thing I’ll say is that is 100% inaccurate. There was a conversation, obviously, but other than that, I’m not going to get into the conversation. We’re going to keep that in-house, like we should, but there was 100% no blowup.

Did you guys have a conversation where you buried the hatchet, so to speak?

We’re all on the same page with everything. Again, we’re just trying to move forward. We have a tough opponent in New England. I know that’s where his focus is in getting himself prepared for Sunday, and that’s where my focus is for this offense.

Communication is the key to everything, right? It’s kind of a corny saying, but where communication lacks, negativity fills the void, so you always try to keep it real with all of these guys. I’m not talking about Elijah (Moore), I’m just talking about all of them. Zach (Wilson) and I have tough conversations, it’s the nature of this beast, it’s the nature of most professions and if you can’t keep it real with each other than a lot of the times bad things happen. You pride yourself on being truthful and having relationships with these guys, we’re continue to do that, we’re going to continue to build. We’re a young, young group, we’re still learning how to do this thing together and I believe we’re going to get to where we want to get to.

Denzel Mims

Yeah, I was really pleased with (Denzel) Mims stepping up. Obviously, there’s quite a few guys, that second quarter was wild, right? I mean just with Breece (Hall) going down, Corey (Davis), AVT (Alijah Vera-Tucker), I mean it was wild on the headset in terms of every other play it seemed like someone was going down and then in the middle of a series you had to make almost an adjustment of where people were, usually you like to wait until after a series, but you didn’t have time you just had to make that adjustment and roll and I thought (Denzel) Mims did a really good job from an assignment standpoint. He went in there, he played really hard. That first snap that he was in that was Breece’s (Hall) long touchdown run and had an incredibly, you know I gave so much credit to C.J. (Uzomah), amongst a lot of other guys for some of the plays they sprung being the assist guy in the Green Bay game, and Mims had such a big impact on that play, didn’t just block a guy, blocked a guy with intent. I don’t if that guy, his bell was rung a little bit, and it was all legal and it was really cool and I thought he really sprung that run and I thought that kind of carried him throughout the game. He played with just a really cool swag, played like he had been playing for the last six weeks, and when he gets his chance on Sunday, I wouldn’t expect anything less.