BB: What are you working on today?
Q: Last week against Tennessee,
what did the Jets show defensively?
BB: They've been primarily 3-4
throughout preseason and the Tennessee game, all five games.
Q: How have the defensive linemen
adjusted to the new system?
BB: Again, they played quite a bit of
3-4 last year.
Q: A lot of two-gap?
BB: They've played some. They've
stunted it some and they've played it straight some. They bumped [John] Abraham out to an outside linebacker. They might've called it an
over/under, but it's really 3-4 spacing. In other words, the linebackers
were off the guards and they played the linebackers at the end of the line
of scrimmage. Now they also dropped down some too, played some over/under
stuff, but they did that and they did it a decent amount of the time. I
don't know what the percentage was. They played it. They have Kimo [von Oelhoffen] in there and he played right end last week against Tennessee. He played some nose earlier in the year and they look like
they use [Dewayne] Robertson some at right end and they
flip-flop those guys, but then last week they moved Kimo back to right end
and kept Dewayne inside at the nose and [Shaun] Ellis on the
left side. Their left side, our right.
Q: Are you seeing them trying to use
a lot of different guys in a different spots and trying to create some
versatility?
BB: Yes, there's no doubt. There's
some of that going on.
Q: When you have a guy like Kevin
Faulk who lines up as a receiver, how much of a difference is there with
the route running and sight adjustments between him and the other wide
receivers on the roster?
BB: That's a good question. There is
some degree of similarity and you just don't have as an extensive a route
tree. It's not anywhere near as complete as what a receiver would be out
there. If certain things happen on the pattern, you still might have to make
those same adjustments that a receiver would make if he were in that spot.
Since he is out there less frequently, it would probably occur less
frequently. Wherever you line a guy up, you have to send him deep, you have
to send him inside, you have to send him outside, you have to hook him up.
You pretty much have to run all of those routes otherwise you're not giving
the defense anything to defend. When he splits out, when you do that with
any player, you have enough variety so that you're just not running one
route, but not to same extent that you would have probably with a receiver.
On that particular play, I think you're referring to last week on the
touchdown pass, that was really a double move where he ran the hook and go.
That was a way to get a double move like that on a linebacker. He's usually
not used to seeing that type of route. It was a good matchup. Kevin ran a good route and Tom [Brady] made a really good throw.
Q: When you spread it out and see a
linebacker on Faulk, does that change Brady's progression? Is
that automatic?
BB: It depends on what the coverage
is. They were in blitz coverage.
Q: There was no safety help?
BB: There was nobody back there, but
that's not always the case. Sometimes linebackers will go out there and will
be backed up by a safety or another defensive back. It just depends on what
the coverage is.
Q: As running backs go in this
league, is Kevin really up there as far as being able to really
exploit that kind of matchup?
BB: I think he's very good in the
passing game. I think he's very good. He runs good routes. He catches the
ball. He can run after the catch. He's smart and understands coverages. He
knows how to get open. He knows when to pull up, when to keep going on
moving routes. Stuff like that. I think he's very good at that.
Q: When you talked yesterday about if
the defensive line is working right, it makes it easier for things behind
them to go right, is that maybe why you have three first round draft picks
on that line because theoretically they're the most talented players?
BB: Well, what I was really referring
to was the running game. In the passing game, once the line rushes, it
starts underneath at the linebacker level and moves back to the secondary.
But in the running game, because the linebackers and the defensive backs
have to fit into the running game off the line, then if the line is in the
spot, then the linebackers can theoretically fit in the right spot and the
defensive backs can fit in the right spot. If the line is off, then the
linebackers are trying to compensate and then the secondary is trying to
compensate. A lot of times that becomes a mess. I think any team would like
to be as strong up front as possible on the offensive line and defensive
line. Those guys are pretty much involved in every play. Every time the ball
is snapped, what they do is important to the play. You could run a running
play to the right, and the receiver on the left, or the outside linebacker
on the left, they may not be that involved in that play. I'm not saying
those positions aren't important, but it's not like those down linemen.
They're pretty much in on everything. You always want to be strong up front
and you want to have good skill players too. It's just having balance on
your team. When it comes to drafting people, we draft players based on value
and players we think are best for our football team. We can't really control
who is on the board when it's our turn to pick and all of that. I don't
think you want to go into the draft and say, 'We're going to take a left
guard, a right defensive end, a corner, a running back.' That may not be
what is up there, so we really don't do it that way.
Q: How do you see the special teams
matchup this weekend?
BB: A big challenge for us. The Jets are always good on special teams and as usual the strengths that
they've had continue to be strengths for them. Last week we talked about Terrence [McGee] leading the league in kickoff returns the last
couple of years for Buffalo. After week one, it's the Jets and [Justin] Miller, and they're very good on kickoff returns. Miller had a
95-yarder against Buffalo last year. He had a long one against Washington in the preseason game this year. I think he went about 85 yards or whatever
it was. Then he had a big one last week after Tennessee had come back
to tie the game, he ran it back to midfield and then that led to the winning
drive. They're very good on kickoff returns. They're very good in the
punting game. [Ben] Graham is a good punter backed up, but
he's a good plus 50 punter. He kicks that end-over-end ball, so they get a
lot of punts downed inside the 10 yard line. They're kind of a big, physical
special teams unit. They have a lot of linebackers, big backs like [B.J.] Askew, guys like that who are big, physical players. They're
sometimes hard to hold up, hard to block on their coverage units. They're
good. They're explosive in the return game. [Tim] Dwight was
out, so they used [Leon] Washington and [Jerricho] Cotchery. They've also used Miller in the past to return punts back
there to. So they have dangerous returners, good specialists, Graham and [Mike] Nugent, good coverage people, a good core group. I think they're
strong across the board. [Mike] Westhoff is a good special
teams coach. We've gone against him for years, first when he was at Miami and when he came to the Jets, whenever it was, four or five years ago. He
does a good job. He gives you a lot of different schemes, some trick plays.
They use a lot of motion and stuff on their kickoff coverage. They faked a
field goal against us here in '03. They've onside kicked in preseason.
They've run some fake punts. They do enough things to keep you off balance
as well as just the normal stuff, which they're pretty good at that too. I
think they're tough. It will be a good challenge for us this week. These are
two of the best special teams units we'll face all year and we've faced them
right off the bat.
Q: With the first play of the game
last week, the fumble, was that on the offensive line and how do you handle
that?
BB: Pass protection is simple math.
You have five offensive linemen, so you always have at least five blockers.
If you want to keep a back or a tight end in, you could keep in six or seven
guys in protection, whatever you want to do. You could do either one. Most
teams have some combination of seven players on the front, whether it's
three linemen or four linebackers, or four linemen or three linebackers. So
there's your seven guys right there. So if you keep six in and they bring
seven, or the six that you're blocking doesn't include whoever that seventh
guy is, even though they only bring five, if that guy happens to be the
seventh guy, then you're a guy short and so somebody has to make some type
of an adjustment, whether it's the quarterback who has to see it and get the
ball to the receiver, whether the receiver has to change his route, however
you want to do it. If you want to give one of your linemen two guys, and
just one instead of one, and so you have, let's say theoretically, six
blockers but one guy has two, so it would have to take two guys to force
that situation, not just one, then if two guys came then quarterback and the
receiver, some combination, would have to make some type of an adjustment.
If you bring a guy out of the secondary, basically he's not accounted for
unless you were to somehow change your protection and take one of your guys,
those seven guys that you were blocking, and put one of them onto the
defensive back as an eighth blocker or a seven to block eight. It just comes
down to numbers. No matter how you do it, there's always a scenario where
you can be outnumbered. You're a quarterback, so you really only have 10
guys and they have 11. The quarterback has the ball. So however you set up
the protection, there's always a change you could be outnumbered by one,
whether it's six against five, whether it's seven against six, whether it's
eight against seven, whether it's nine against eight. No matter how you do
it, there's always an extra guy. Then you just have to somehow account for
that in the play, whether it's the quarterback, whether it's a receiver,
whether it's a lineman or a back who is taking two for one. Somehow you just
have to account for those things. If you make a mistake, then you can end up
with a free guy. Theoretically, if you have a free guy and the quarterback
and/or the receiver, back, tight end, whoever it is, should make that
adjustment. If they don't, then you have a problem. If you think you have it
picked up but you make a mistake on the protection and you don't have it
picked up, then the quarterback is standing back there thinking that it's
blocked, but it really isn't blocked, because it's the assignment upfront.
There's a number of different things that can happen in protection and
that's why as a coach when I'm watching the film of another team and I see
guys come free, a lot of times you're not sure exactly who made the mistake.
Was it the linemen? Was it the quarterback? Was it the receiver? Was it the
play? Sometimes you just call a play and say, 'You know what? They've never
brought this guy. We're just going to run the play and take our chances
based on this situation. 99 percent of the time they haven't brought him and
we think the odds are with us.' That's basically how it works. I'm not going
to get into breaking down each specific play, but no matter how you do it,
that's what pass protection [is] and that's how it relates to the passing
game. You always have to be able to account for those extra guys somewhere
along the line. However you do the numbers there's still one more guy.
Q: Is it hard ask the guard and
tackle to let go of a guy who is right on him?
BB: Well, if they have you two on
one, it doesn't really make any difference which guy you take, right? It
wouldn't make any difference if you've took one guy and dropped the other
one.
Q: [Aaron] Schobel was
closer.
BB: On that particular play he's
outside. Yes, you could take one guy and let the other guy go. Maybe the
other guy gets there. Maybe he doesn't. That's just a function of the timing
of the pass play. Obviously what happened on that play is not what we wanted
to happen. That wasn't the way the play was intended. We had a couple of
mistakes on the play and it was a combination of things.
Q: Could there have been a slide on
the play?
BB: You can set the protection up
however you want to do it. It's not like every time they blitzed the
linebacker, the guy came free and hit the quarterback, now. There were plenty
of times where the guys blitzed and they got blocked. If it would've been
done a little bit differently on that play, that would have been blocked.
Now, had they brought somebody else on that play and we had handled the thing
differently, then somebody else could have been free. It's just a question
of how that stuff matches up. But the key thing is when there is a free guy,
you know that there's a free guy, then somehow the quarterback and the
receiver have to work around that guy. If you think that they're picked up
but there's been a mistake in the protection and the guy comes free, well
then the quarterback is not looking to adjust it because he thinks it's
blocked, but there was a mistake in the protection somewhere. Those are the
things that are involved in the passing game.
Q: Was that a fairly simple one that
you guys didn't get?
BB: We just didn't get it done on
that play, and that's from top to bottom. It was a combination of things
that we just didn't do right.
Q: Has Chad Jackson had a good
week of practice?
BB: Well, it's good to see him back
out there. At least he's out there, so that's good.
Q: Do you feel like he has enough of
a knowledge of the pass patterns, etc. to play in the game?
BB: I don't know. We'll have to
decide that when we make our active list.
Q: How is Tedy Bruschi doing?
BB: Good. He said to give you his
best.
Q: [Laughter] Is he taking on more of
a load in practice?
BB: Yeah, he's done well. He's had a
couple of good weeks now. I think he's getting closer. He's day-to-day. He's
another guy we'll have to make a decision on as we get closer to game time.
Q: You have a couple of guys ailing
with the flu. I was wondering 1) if there was a bug going through and 2) if
you've ever had a time in your career where that actually became sort of a
problem where you have so many guys in one room?
BB: Yeah, it's definitely a problem.
It's unusual for it to be a problem this early in the year. Usually it's
more of a late October, November or early December, whenever the flu bug
hits. There were times when you had eight, nine, 10 guys on the team, a
couple coaches come down with it, if it's going around. It's definitely a
problem. I think it's a little unusual for guys to have it in September,
like it is to have the flu in July. Who has the flu in July? It's unusual,
but it's not unusual to have it in November or December. We'll just deal
with that. I don't know that it's related to the same bug, but like you
said, everybody is in the same room, everybody is in the same locker room.
It's the kind of thing that you certainly want to keep your eye on, and when
guys get it, you make sure that you kind of take them away from everybody
else, so that one doesn't become six guys.
Q: Will [Garrett] Mills be fined for spreading the bug around?
BB: Did he do it? I don't know.
Hopefully he'll be all right. A lot of times when you get that stuff at this
time of year, it's a 24-48-hour type of thing. We'll just have to see.
There's no way to know until they're ready to go.
Q: Eric Alexander seems like
he's solidified a spot on the special teams unit. How has he done with his
progression?
BB: I think he is a guy that's really
made steady improvement every year. This is three years in a row. The first
year he missed some time in the spring camps after… well he wasn't drafted,
he came as a free agent, but he missed some time in the spring camps. Then
he did some things in training camp, but still missed some time again and
was just not able to really stay on the field on a consistent basis. That
wasn't a problem last year and I thought that he had a much better camp last
year mainly due to the fact that he was out there. He had a really good
preseason game, in the last game here against the Giants. Then he was
on the practice squad and has worked hard and has gotten better. This year I
think his training camp was better than it was last year. He's taken another
step up and had another good year in the offseason. He is playing well on
defense and special teams. We played him a little bit at inside and outside
linebacker in the preseason games and he did a solid job. I think he's a
good example of a guy that didn't start off really with any kind of role
here, but has gradually worked his way up to…if he can continue to improve,
he'll be a good, solid player for us like we've had with other players like
that. The Steve Neals of the world and guys like that who have taken
a little bit of time, but they've been able to elevate their level of play
and work on their weaknesses and get stronger and get better at technique
and understand the game better and play better.
Q: Do you remember the first time you
met Eric Mangini?
BB: The first time I met him was in Cleveland.
Q: What had you heard about him?
BB: Well I heard a lot about him from Kevin Spencer. Kevin Spencer coached him Wesleyan. I knew
Kevin when I was at Detroit with the Lions and then he came to Cleveland. He became head coach at Wesleyan. Then he came to
Cleveland in '91 after he had been at Wesleyan for, I forget what it was,
three years, four years, whatever it was. We had talked about his teams and
some of his players and stuff like that. I kind of knew of him without
actually having met him or known him through Kevin.
Q: What did he say about him?
BB: Kevin had a lot of great
things to say about him. Really Kevin was probably more of the reason of him
being out there than anybody. Then, once he got out there, he worked in PR
for the summer. Then when that internship ended, that's when he came in on
the football end of it.
Q: Is that an unusual path into
coaching?
BB: Yes, getting anybody from PR into
football, that's not usually how it works in the programs I've been
associated with. Usually the PR guys stay in PR and the football guys stay
in football and the marketing guys stay in marketing.
Q: What about him being a ball boy?
BB: I think that's more of a generic
term. That covers the lot.
Q: He wasn't actually catching balls
from the net?
BB: Not that I remember, but maybe we
could throw that into the story and juice it up a little bit, get him lining
the fields and washing the [laundry] and sorting the socks and all of that.
Q: Do you remember how he made the
transition from PR to football?
BB: Yeah, because we had a situation
on our staff where we kind of lost a guy for a while because of a health
situation during training camp and the early part of the season, so we were
a little bit shorthanded there and the PR thing was, like I said, coming to
an end, the PR interns and the marketing interns and everything else. Those
people were all going back to whatever they were doing in the fall. So we
kind of needed an extra guy and he was around and we'd kind of got to know
him through the PR program.
Q: And that was kind of a quality
control position?
BB: Yes. He worked with Kirk
Ferentz a little bit on offense and just kind of helped us out around
there doing a variety of things.
Q: If you read the New York papers this week, it's portrayed that you and Eric are enemies. Is
that an accurate portrayal?
BB: I've missed all of those New
York papers. What I've said is how I feel. I've gone through those
questions several times this week. What I've said, that's how I feel. You'd
have to talk to those New York papers.
Q: Can you talk about getting your
100th win?
BB: It was nice to win. It's nice to
win the opener. I think that's the most important thing. I'm sure there will
be a day to look back and count them up or whatever, but right now the only
thing I care about is the '06 season and being 1-0 in the division and now
going down and playing in New York, another division game and trying
to get to 2-0 in the division and 2-0 to start the season. Believe me, I'd
rather have 100 than 99 this week, I'm not saying that. I'm just really
focused on what our record is this season. The other ones, they don't really
matter.
Q: What type of challenge does the Meadowlands present for Stephen Gostkowski? It's pretty windy
there.
BB: It is windy. There's no doubt
about it. Believe me, I've coached a lot of games in that stadium. There is
wind. It's kind of like this place. There's always some type of wind,
usually more of a crosswind than a down field wind, but it can be that way
too. We kicked there a couple of weeks ago, so I think that was good. I'm
glad that we did, to just have some experience on that field. Again, it's
been windy out here a lot. It's just like anything else, if you kick the
ball where you want to kick it and then you compensate for the wind a little
bit, then that will take care of it. If you don't kick it where you want to
kick it, whether there's wind or not, you're probably not going to be happy
with the results. Really it just comes down to consistency and kicking the
ball the way you want to kick it and where you want to kick it. On the
longer kicks, the longer field goals and the kickoffs, the wind has more of
an affect obviously on those kicks. I think the further the ball travels,
then the more it's going to be affected by whichever way the wind is
blowing. We all know that. We just have to take that into account.
Q: Down there it's more of a
crosswind or is there more of one here?
BB: No, here it's more of a crosswind
too. Most of the time the wind in this stadium blows from their bench to our
bench.
Q: So it's similar?
BB: It's similar in that it's more of
a crosswind field than a down the field wind. |
