Jets Postgame Quotes (Week One)

Head Coach Robert Saleh

Video: Here

On what positives he can take out of the game…

Speaking for the defense, I thought we came in (and) had a really good plan. I thought our guys played with a lot of juice and energy, gave up three explosive plays unfortunately, two of them on third down resulted in a touchdown and one of them was that 55-yard explosive, we got caught being a little nosy in the back end. Overall, from the defense, (they) did a really, really good job going blow for blow with those dudes. Lot of respect for Lamar (Jackson) and their offense and what they’ve got. Offensively, moved the ball well, five trips into their territory, came away with nine points. We’re missing kicks, we’re missing extra points, we’re not going to win football games (like that). It’s impossible to win against a veteran team when you move the ball the way you do and you come up empty handed time and time again like we did today.

On mistakes…

I am proud of our guys. Unfortunately, when you have a first-down conversation and you fumble and now you’re kicking a field goal and you miss (the) kick, it’s hard. You’re not going to beat a veteran team when you’re not capitalizing on the momentum that you gain, and from dropped passes to being loose with the football, to missed kicks, this is a game, in my opinion, that we absolutely lost.

On moral victories…

There’s no moral victory. Not even close to a moral victory, but I do know that if we do what we’re supposed to do, if we come out and play the way we did, with the energy and the juice like I talked about, we’ve got to get it fixed. Like I told you, we’re young at skill spots, we’re young at critical positions and we’ve got to go grow quick. Breece (Hall) fumbled the ball once, Garrett (Wilson) did a heck of a job getting himself to a third-and-short situation or to almost to the sticks and it’s just stick your shoulder down instead of making the extra move. There’s just little detail that we were not clean on on the offensive side of the ball. But yeah, there’s no moral victory. Make sure you guys understand that. But I do know that if we do play with that type of mentality and we do play with that type of effort that we played today with, we’re going to be fine. We’ve just got to clean it up.

On Joe Flacco…

We’ll go to the tape. Obviously, we all agree it’s never good enough, especially when you’re not scoring points. We were moving the ball and it always comes down to one or two plays. Get him momentum, get him going and just all around we just weren’t helping him. There were plays, obviously, he wasn’t helping himself either, but in critical moments in the game nobody was helping one another, let’s just say that.

On not playing tight ends as much as expected…

I think it’s more the way the game flowed. We started out in 13 personnel, as you guys saw, to start the game to get the three of them going and we had a couple of good plays here and there but it’s just the way the game ended up we just couldn’t get them going.

On playing a lot of dime defense…

Yeah, we wanted to match up with their tight ends, big bodies, big, big bodies, and tried to get Bryce (Hall) out there as a big body, and the way they distributed from a route distribution standpoint, he obviously ended up on a receiver, which is fine, Bryce has done that before, but it’s just simple technique, eyes, leverage, probably played it a little too thick at the line of scrimmage and gave it up.

On Baltimore’s deep touchdown pass…

On the 55-yarder, we just got a little nosy on the back end, obviously got behind us. A lot of respect to their run game, especially with them having he lead, they just got caught being nosy.

On drops…

It’s execution. These guys, they’re professionals. I promise you they’re focused. They prepare the right way. But in the moment, you’ve got to be able to execute and there’s no excuse. Michael (Carter) has a touchdown if he just catches the ball. A lot of wasted (opportunities).

On the offensive line…

We ran the ball well. I think we were at almost six yards a carry at halftime and we just couldn’t get it going in the second half. We had a three-and-out to start, the stop on defense, get the sack, they come back on the field, I think it was a shank of a punt, (they get the) short field, (then) touchdown on the third down, and now you’re behind the sticks and you just can’t get the run game going. (It was) just a couple of plays (that) snowballed in the second half where the offense, we obviously fell behind and the offense had to play catchup.

On the defense…

You don’t want too many shots. You come in with a defensive game plan and offenses are good, coordinators are good. You give them too many looks, you’re going to get exposed here and there. I thought we were lights out in defending their run game. That’s a run game that’s notorious for moving the ball on people and we had their explosives down. You look at just the body of work and you just feel like three explosive plays all day, you’re not supposed to lose a football game.

On the defense turning on the offense…

Oh God no. No. Not even close. In terms of our defense, the job is to get the offense the ball back and the offense’s job is to score points. That’s it.

On Greg Zuerlein…

He’s a veteran, I think he’ll bounce back. I’m not worried about Z. Obviously, it wasn’t his best day and I’m very confident that he’ll bounce back just fine.

On how disconcerting it is to have mistakes in all three phases…

Again, it comes down to execution. From an offensive standpoint, the good thing is it’s stuff we’ve been doing since we were kids—run, catch, tackle. The defense tackled well, but it’s just being disciplined, do your job, master the obvious and we’ll be fine.

On if there were any injuries…

No, we came out clean.

On if he’s hopeful they’ll get Duane Brown back…

Hopeful, we’re hopeful we’ll get him back. We’ll see how this rehab thing goes for him.

On why the team went with Zuerlein over Eddie Pineiro…

Again, we opened it up for competition and Z beat him fair and square.

On why they had a competition for Pineiro after he went 8-8…

You still have to have a competition. Obviously, there’s a multitude of reasons, but with regards to just trying to find someone established and create pressure in the situation, I tell you Eddie probably had the inside track and you create a pressure situation to make sure that you have the right guy and Z beat

Joe Flacco

Video: Here

On how he feels after the game….

Obviously, frustrated. It wasn’t a good showing for us on offense. We just never really got into our rhythm and got any energy going behind us.

On what he thinks caused the lack of rhythm…

I just think there are some easy things that we left out there early in the game and we just didn’t execute well enough in terms of some of our game plan stuff that we really thought we’d be able to take advantage of. Maybe early on some of that stuff was taken away and we had to just get down to the easy one a little better than we did in terms of my part. It was just a thing here and there. I felt like we would get right around midfield on a couple of drives and we should have had some energy going behind us and we kind of just were, “Oh, yeah let’s go, let’s go up to the ball.” We just never turned the corner and got going off of some of those plays we did have. We had some chunks. I feel like we had some chunks in the first half, but it was literally one play and that was it.

On the interception…

I kind of saw the hole open up. When I go back and watch this game early on, I’m going to just wish that I just took some of the five-yard checkdowns earlier in the game. I don’t know if I wouldn’t throw that again, but I think that is going to be one of the main things we look at early on, especially myself. Did that kind of look like it was there with the underneath coverage with the hole opening up? Yes, but the safety was driving and you have a little miscue on running the route and the next thing you know, you’re in a bad position. So, I think there were a couple plays like that, that I could have been quicker to just take the five-yard piece of it and move on to the next drive.

On if a Week One loss feels different than other weeks…

I guess so. It can. You have a lot of momentum going behind you in training camp and preseason and you’re optimistic about where the team is heading. It’s obviously a punch in the face to come out and lose a football game. Obviously, when you’re starting at .500 and now you’re kind of going into the next week behind the eight ball a little bit, I guess it’s a little frustrating. I think there’s a lot of positives to take out of there. I think our defense played really, really well. (The defense) plays so hard and got after them and really did the best they could and I think there’s things that we’re going to look at on offense and say that we did well. It’s just, we can’t keep saying that. And I just keep going back to the belief in ourselves that we’re good and I’m talking to myself too. I think every time we take the field, we just have to truly believe that we are capable because we are and I think that’s kind of why we’re missing some of that little juice here and there to get us over the hum and like I said, I’m talking to myself, not just young guys and things like that.

On if he has ever experienced having to convince himself he’s good…

Like I said, when you have young guys that haven’t played in this league and then we have a bunch of veterans that just haven’t won consistently over the last couple of years, you have to learn how to win football games and create that winning culture and winning on Sundays is a big part of that. I think we’ve done a lot of the other parts of it, but it still comes down to winning on Sundays.

On how to avoid a losing mentality…

I just think we have to continue to keep in focus, like every day, each day, one day at a time. It’s obviously that cliche thing, but us as players and people in the building, we just have to keep our heads down and go to work and not listen to the outside noise that can kind of creep in and create this feeling of this gray cloud over us. I think as long as we just put the blinders on and stay in our box and continue to have the belief and continue to create that team that we have, I think that’s the best way and that’s the only way we’re going to be able to move forward.

On what it was like having a midweek switch on the offensive line when Duane Brown got hurt…

I don’t think too much about that stuff. We’re all professional up there. Nobody really skips a beat. They jump in and they play hard. I thought they fought and played really hard today. And you know, we had some chunks in the run game that we got and when you dropped back as many times as we did today, you’re going to have some things here and there that leak through, but those guys fought all day and I thought they played really well together. We all have to make little improvements, like I talked about, in order for us to take that next step.

On Garrett Wilson’s performance today…

It’s tough to think of exactly what he did for the yardage and stuff like that, but we’ve been able to tell that when the lights turn on, it’s not too big for him. He’s excited to be out there and be playing this game and let his playing do the talking. I think that’s what you see when you watch a rookie lineup for the first time. I think we already kind of anticipated that and I saw more of it today.

On the tight ends not being as involved in this game…

I think you’d have to look, especially because this is a game that we kind of felt like we could go in early on and use all three of those guys in a certain way. I definitely think (with) some of our game plan stuff, we just never got rolling early on and then what it turned into in the second half there. Once they scored a couple touchdowns and we didn’t, it’s probably a lot to do with that.

On how they improve communication during the week…

It’s just constantly going out there and practicing and having the focus to keep our eye on the prize and not really veer from that. Like I said, I think we’re built a lot better than a team that’s going to fall apart off of one game. I think we have a lot of guys in there that have great relationships and really believe in what we can do. I think we’re a lot ahead of where it may seem we are.

On if there was any emotion facing his former team…

Listen, you see a couple of people here and there, but at the end of the day, it felt like another game. Obviously, it would have been nice to beat those guys. There’s a couple of familiar faces that I lined up across from, guys that have been there and gone away and come back, but ultimately that was just another defense, another team.

On his message to the younger players after a game like today…

Just keep your head up and keep the belief in yourself and the competence that you have. We’re going to be better than we are today, and you did a great job. They just got their first start in the NFL or first handful of snaps in the NFL. It’s an exciting day. Obviously, it didn’t go the way we wanted it to. But for those guys, they got a lot in front of them and they’ve got to keep their head up and realize that they’re going to be great players for years to come.

Michael Carter

Video: Here

On the takeaways from their performance today…

I feel like we learned a lot today. Everybody’s trying to figure out who they are and everybody’s trying to figure themselves out. Obviously, we want some things back. Obviously, they have a good quarterback, they have a good team. They’re not so good that we’re outmatched, we have a really special team too, super talented and great and we have to play more complimentary football.

On the Jets offensive efforts in the second half and end of the game…

I think our effort was good throughout the game. To answer your question, I feel like we have to stop playing with our eyes so often. We get so comfortable in that two-minute situation. We’re kind of like going, ‘Hurry up, we got 10 minutes left’ and it’s kind of necessary, but at the same time, we have 10 more in the game. So, it’s a conversation to have with our guys and stuff like that. We’ll figure it out.

Tyler Conklin

On how much of a factor is the offensive line not having time together….

You just don’t want to come in after a loss and make excuses. It is what it is. It was raining, we all had our part in the loss. I thought the offensive line, they did good things, they did bad things. The receivers did good things, bad things. Tight ends, running backs, good things, bad things. We dropped back a lot, you know, we were down. That’s hard on an offensive line when you know they know you’re passing and then they can just, you know, pin their ears back and get after it. There’s really no excuse to make. We just got to get back, look ourselves in the mirror, and prepare for next week. We got a lot of football to play and we got a good team. I know, everybody is like oh the same old stuff, it’s not the same stuff. We got a good team. I think we went out there and I think everybody can feel it. You know, that the defense played really, really well today and like I said, the offense just has to, we got to be better for them, we gotta be better as a unit, be better as individuals and we will.

On Coach Saleh’s message after the game…

I think we ran the ball well. I think coming out of the half we were six yards per carry or something or whatever it was. I don’t know the stats, but you know, we moved the ball, I think we were in the red zone in their territory five different times. We came back with nine points. You have to be better when you get in their territory you know, and like, you said, I had a fumble, you can’t do stuff like that. It is what it is, take accountability for it. I don’t care if it’s raining, I don’t care if it was a good play. You just can’t do stuff like that, especially in the red zone. You let your teammates down, you just have to go back and go to practice and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Breece Hall

On not fumbling often in college…

It’s very frustrating you know, like you said, I am not used to it. I don’t usually do it. I don’t accept it so I just have to watch the film. It’s going to hurt, but I just have to move on and have to move on to the next week and just do your best to not fumble next week. That starts with practice. A little more ball security, getting on the juggs more, catching and securing it in practice and everything like that. It won’t happen again.

On getting more comfortable as the game went on….

Yeah, you know, it sucks, just not really getting that many looks in the preseason and then boom, you’re in the real game. It was a cool experience. I started to get a little more comfortable. I could have done a lot of things better than I did, but it was a good first game.

Bryce Hall

On what makes Lamar Jackson so difficult to defend…

Well, I think, obviously his athletic ability, he creates opportunities that might not be there with other quarterbacks when you get the chance to extend plays. And I would say that’s probably the biggest thing.`

On if the defense put up a good fight…

I think so. I really believe in the group of guys that we have on this team. I think we can get it done and I think we showed really good poise, heart and fight all throughout the game. Early on, I felt like we were doing a really good job. I believe in this group, and I think we’re just going to continue to get better.

On if the team will take away something positive out of this game…

Absolutely. It’s only one game. So, it’s a long season. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. So, we’re just going to take it day-by-day. We got a great group of guys here.

Jermaine Johnson

On how it felt to get his first sack…

It was awesome, it was awesome. Like I said, the guys on the team, all I want to do is celebrate with them because that’s the kind of people we have. It was awesome to do that. It was a long road getting here. God is great, all glory to God.

On what he needs to do to play even better…

Make less mistakes and win more one-on-ones. It’s the league, everyone has good players, but we got to win the one-on-one’s and make less mistakes.

On if he felt like he belonged…

Oh yeah, it was never a question. I feel like I belong. It was a long road to get here, but I’m here. I don’t question where God placed me. I’m being the best teammate that I can and go out there and putting God’s talents that he blessed me with on display.

C.J. Mosley

Video: Here

On the belief that there is enough talent within the organization to turn things around…

I believe that every day I walk in the building, every day I wake up a Jet. I never have any doubt on the men that we have here and what we can do, but like I said before, it’s up to us to make that real life. It’s hard to really see it and grasp it in this league and in this business because the window is so small in this league to be precise and to get to the playoffs and to win. It takes a lot of believing and not seeing, so we have to make sure that we’re doing our part every single day to try to make that happen.

On what gives him reason to be encouraged by this team overall…

Mainly because we believe in ourselves. We’re not worried about what the outside world says, we’re not worried about what the expectations are outside our building. We know the work we put in, we feel comfortable, confident, ready to play against whoever, whoever we line up against and that’s really why we come out and play the way that we play.

On today’s issues being execution, not effort…

I do. I agree with that. It was a lot of plays we left out there, offense, defense and special teams, as far as communication issues, little things like that. Special teams and the offense, obviously, we got to score the ball when we get in the red zone. When you play these type of teams, when you play the playoff caliber teams, Super Bowl caliber teams, veteran teams with great coaching, it obviously comes down to executions and effort. Sometimes you might get a little bit one or the other, but nine times out of 10 you got to execute at the end of the game.

Sheldon Rankins

On when it’s about winning…

That’s what it’s always about, but at the same time, you also have to understand the situation at hand. The loss is what it is, we can’t go back and change it, but understand that within the loss there will be some things you like and some things you’re able to use as growing tools for this team; defense, offense, special teams, as a whole. And you take those, use those, and take those into the next one. Obviously, every team wants to go 17-0, every team wants to win every game, but somebody has to lose it, sadly we were today, but we’ll go back, we’ll correct those things and we’ll continue to get better.

On how tough it is to play against Lamar (Jackson)…

Yeah, it is tough, it’s truly 11-on-11 football every snap, and you don’t get that every week, usually there are sometimes where you truly just don’t account for the quarterback, because, for lack of a better phrase, they’re a statue back there. But Lamar has an element that not many people, not only now playing, but in the history of this league have never added to an offense. It’s definitely something you truly have to play somewhat different concepts and kind of shift your entire focus or your way of teaching to do certain things to be able to neutralize him. He definitely presents a task and I think, like I said, outside of the explosives that they were obviously able to make into touchdowns, we were able to force him into throwing the ball short, making those guys go a long hard way and I think if we continue to do that over the course of the season against any offense, I think we’ll have some success.

On how you get rid of explosives…

Well I think overall, you’re never going to play a perfect game. I think when you look at that offense over there, they’ve got talented players, they will make some plays. You understand that as a guy who’s been playing in this league a long time, good teams will make plays, which is the way it goes. You usually try to limit those as much as possible. I think, you know by our standards, I think they really only had I think three explosives, which were touchdowns. I think with those explosives, we can get those guys on the ground and those don’t lead to points, it’s just a different story. It just kind of comes with it sometimes. Like I said, good teams are going to make plays, you’ve just got to be able to not allow those plays to equal points or equal touchdowns and get the ball back to the offense.

Laken Tomlinson

Video: Here

On the 11 quarterback hurries…

I mean we just got to do a better job of protecting the ball, obviously. It starts up front, it’s something we can go back and look at and get back to the drawing board.

On the starters not playing a lot in the preseason…

Actually, I think we just got to take advantage of the opportunities that we had. I thought we did a really good job of running the ball early in the game. Now we just got to take advantage of the trips we have to the red zone and score points.

On if a Week One loss feels different than other weeks…

I mean obviously you want to start off with a win, I mean that’s what we’ve been training for, that’s what we’ve been dreaming about all offseason. It’s good film to go look at and get better from.