Head Coach Robert Saleh, 11.16
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Opening Statement:
(Sheldon) Rankins, Corey (Davis), and (Nate) Herbig will not practice today, and Duane (Brown) is on his normal week.
Brian Costello, New York Post: What’s up with Herbig?
He’s dealing with something with his leg.
Brian Costello, New York Post: (follow up) Is there concern for Sunday?
No, I’m not really concerned.
Zack Rosenblatt, The Athletic: Does Corey have a chance to play this week?
He has a chance. He’s not going to practice today, but we’re going to see how far we can progress him over the course of the week.
John Pullano, New York Jets: With Rankins out and how well he’s been playing, what have you thought of his play and also, how do you plan on replacing him?
Rankins has been fantastic. He’s having a really nice season. Hopefully, this injury is not too long, but it’s next man up mentality. We’ll see how the week goes with how we utilize it. We have been playing plus-one, plus-two on the d-line, and activating 10 anyway. We’ll figure it out as the week goes.
Al Iannazzone, Newsday: Are you confident that he’s not going to have to go on IR?
Pretty confident.
Tom Rock, Newsday: Are you a better team than you were three weeks ago when you faced this team?
I feel like we’ve gotten better every week. It still comes down to being able to execute and do our job and do right longer and all the different things that we talk about. You’d like to think with each passing day you get a little bit better.
Andy Vasquez, NJ Advance Media: You talk about learning from adversity or growing from adversity. What do you think you learned from that game?
I just mentioned it, do right longer. This game doesn’t always come down to talent and all of that stuff. It comes down to whether or not we can execute at the highest level for 60 minutes. It’s taking care of the football. It’s being opportunistic on defense. It’s executing your job to the best of your ability at 100%, and you trust that at the end of the day if you do that for 60 minutes, you trust that the results will be where you want them to be.
Antwan Staley, New York Daily News: As far as Zach (Wilson), you said he had been held hostage for the bad plays that he made. How do you balance the bad plays that he made and also look at the good plays he’s made as well?
You focus on all of it. There’s a saying that you treat both negative and positive the same. You treat both imposters. They’re both imposters, and you treat them both the same because there’s teachable moments in everything that happens, whether it’s good or bad. Even through the positive plays, there’s a lot of things that can be taught to make it better. Through the negative plays, there are things that can be taught, so that we don’t have those negative plays repeat themselves. So, the balance, there is no balance. You just attack all of it exactly the same, but from a narrative standpoint, to try to attack a young man for four or five plays that are four or five teachable moments in my mind. I think we’re missing the big picture on it. That’s all.
Antwan Staley, New York Daily News: How can the game that he had against the Bills help him? Especially coming into the game against New England, considering what happened the first time around.
It’s confidence. These young men, everyone, confidence is a great momentum builder. You go against a team like Buffalo and you play the way he did, which was a really good game. He’s had a lot of good moments throughout the season, played really well against Miami, played really well against Pittsburgh, played really well against Buffalo. We feel good about his trajectory and where he’s going.
Zack Rosenblatt, The Athletic: Last week, Bill Belichick was talking about C.J. Mosley, and he was saying how he is able to diagnose a play before it happens and he calls it out, and he noticed it happening a lot in that game. How valuable is it having a guy like C.J. who’s so aware of everything?
The veterans, like a guy like C.J. whose been around enough and seen it all, and that’s the advantage of a veteran. They’ve seen it. They’ve got scars. They understand the game, they can see the game, and knock-on wood with C.J. being a veteran, he still plays like he’s 24-years-old. He’s still fast, he still hits violently, and he still plays with a lot of enthusiasm and juice. Having guys like him are priceless.
Rich Cimini, ESPN.com: (follow-up) Does he do that a lot?
Yeah, he’s very vocal. You guys remember last year, I mean he checked out of a defense. So, he’s always communicating, he does a really nice job, he does a great job anticipating. He is a tremendous asset, especially in the front, because he’s talking and you figure he’s in the middle of the defense, everyone can hear him except for maybe the corners. So, he’s been fantastic.
Tom Rock, Newsday: (follow-up) Is that any kind of a problem that he was called out publicly on that?
No, just means that I’m sure Coach Belichick did a really hard self-scout this week and they’ll have something new for us.
Al Iannazzone, Newsday: Why do you think Belichick’s defenses give, I mean they give a lot of people problems, but it seems like they give young quarterbacks problems the most?
They’re multiple, so they change the picture a lot. Like I said, you talk about veterans, so they’re filled with a bunch of veterans, lot of smart players, lot of good football players that can look at a formation and diagnose a play before its happened. When you’ve been there for 20 years or whatever many years and you can teach all the snakes because the whole coaching staff knows every snake in the grass, like I’ve said before, and you can teach it to veterans and the veterans who already know the game of football as well as they do, they can jump, and they can do things that normal teams won’t do. So, it’s kind of a learning experience for a young guy.
Rich Cimini, ESPN.com: With Elijah Moore, when you drafted him and pretty much for a year you were very confident that he would be a really good outside receiver. So, obviously he’s been playing the slot the last couple weeks, what changed and why did it change?
I still think Elijah (Moore) will be good wherever he goes. It’s a few things, there’s the emergence of Garrett (Wilson) on the outside also. Elijah, trying to get him some run on the inside where he can utilize his shiftiness and his separation and his route running ability, so it’s a bunch of different things, and not that he’s going to be exclusive to just the slot, it’s just going to be more opportunities in the slot. So, he hasn’t, to be official with it and maybe, I know it’s been a big deal over the Bye Week, he’s not making an official move to the slot, it’s just a lot more opportunities in the slot. So, just trying to utilize him to put him in the best positions to be successful.
Rich Cimini, ESPN.com: Was this part of when you had that conversation with him after he requested the trade, was this one of the things you tossed out to him saying maybe ‘hey, we can try to get you more opportunities in the slot?’
Where Elijah’s really good is he’s always got constant dialogue and he’s always trying to find ways to help himself get better, which is why we love him. So, yeah, all those conversations happened, it wasn’t kind of a ‘hey, we’ll do this for you,’ it’s just more let’s try to find ways to help him get in a groove on gameday, because like I’ve said, all he wants to do is help the football team. That’s what this whole thing has been about, it’s not been about playing time, he wants to help and whether he feels like helping is through production or helping is through getting opportunities to be put in different positions where he’s the number one on progression, he just wants to help. In our mind, this is a way that we can get him to help us a little bit more by creating a little bit more versatility to his game.
Brian Costello, New York Post: Is it a tough sell to players when it’s not production where you can help in other ways?
It is tough because the game is, especially now a days with all the money running around and flowing, you’ve got a small window to try to attack it and make generational wealth and especially from where a lot of these young men come from, it’s many different stories, but there’s an individual goal and then there’s the team goal, and it is tough, but I go back to when you serve with no intent to receive it usually come backs two-fold. So, just focus on the things you’ve got control over and dominate your moment and trust that good things will happen.
Al Iannazzone, Newsday: I know you talk about every week is a championship week, but this team has obviously lost a lot of game to the Patriots. How important do you think this game is for this franchise, the program that you’re trying to build here. How important is this week?
I said it, I forget when I said it that we’re too young, we haven’t been here long enough to experience the scars and all that stuff. Divisional games are always important because there’s ramifications way down the line from a scenario standpoint, but it really is just another championship opportunity. I get it’s the Patriots and I get it’s big for the fans and some of the people upstairs in the business department, our ownership and all that stuff, but for us as coaches, players you’ve got to keep the main thing the main thing, and that this is another championship opportunity versus another championship football team, and we’ve got to play at a championship level.
Steve Serby, New York Post: Where do you sense your team is at from a mental point of view?
I feel good about it. I think we all feel good about where they are. There’s a lot of confidence in the locker room, but it’s a quiet confidence, and that it’s, the three most famous words in football are “I got it,” and I don’t feel like our locker room has that mindset it’s more “hey, we’re very confident, let’s attack the day, let’s make sure we find a way to get better,” and I think it’s in a really good place mentally.
Antwan Staley, New York Daily News: Where would you assess James Robinson is right now as opposed to the first time around when you played the Patriots?
He’s further along. I thought he had a really good day against Buffalo. I feel like he probably got his life settled over the Bye Week you’ve got to assume. It’s a whirlwind to get traded, over the Bye Week was able to get stuff moved over here, so mentally I’m sure he’s probably at more of a calm, and then physically he’s getting better.
Steve Serby, New York Post: Have you told your team this week to tone it down a little bit as opposed to the New England game two weeks ago when they were talking a lot?
Do you feel like they were talking a lot? I didn’t get a feel on that, but no, I want our locker room to be our locker room. If they want to, obviously rule one is to protect the team, but I’m not going to ask our guys to put on a front.
Rich Cimini, ESPN.com: Quick offensive line question. What’s the thought of bringing LDT (Laurent Duvernay-Tardif) in for a workout. Is he going to sign and are you going to roll with Cedric (Ogbuehi) at right tackle?
We’re working him out. You guys know Joe D (Joe Douglas) if he could have 53 o-linemen on the team, he would. No, but LDT was such a great asset to us last year, he did such a great job and I know he wanted an opportunity to come out and workout, so we’ll see how that goes and we’ll make a decision form there.
Rich Cimini, ESPN.com: (follow-up) And then Cedric?
He’s staying at right tackle, and we’ll see how Max (Mitchell) progresses.