Rex Ryan Monday Media Transcript

Buffalo Bills Head Coach Rex Ryan
Monday, September 21, 2015
Opening Comments:

Obviously watching the tape there is an old saying it is never as good as you think and it is never as bad as you think. I will say today it was pretty much as bad as I thought. And yet with that being said, I love the way our team kept playing, and kept believing we can come back in that thing. When you look at the fact offensively we had three interceptions, we got sacked eight times, and we had six straight three and outs. On special teams we had six penalties, a missed extra point and two bad punts. On defense we gave up 460 some yard passing, it ain’t going to get to worse than that. And yet at the end of the day we still actually had a chance to compete for the victory. Obviously there are a million negative things we have to get corrected yet, I love the fighting spirit of our team and the heart that our team has. So if there is one thing we got to be able to see it, and it can’t be worse than that in all three phases.

Q: As a coach when do you allow yourself to look at some of the good?

A: Well I mean that is all part of it. You do see it your third and fourth down that was it, but too bad we couldn’t get them there enough. But it was…hey it was an ugly day. There is no question about it. But there is so much to correct. I mean it starts, number one, this is still a new team for me as well. I am recognizing we have got to have that controlled emotion, and that aggression and things like that. The bigger the game the more calm you have to be. I think we have to realize, hey let’s play the game. We want to be as physical of a football team as there is in the league. We have always said that, but we want to do it with the confinements of the rules. And I think we have to learn from that and make it to where penalties–they are in our favor, not the other way. And right now it is hard to play against a good football team and you have to overcome penalties. So we have got to do that, number one that is the first thing we got to get better at, and then some things, execution of some plays obviously has to get better. Communication, if you make mistakes against good teams they burn you and clearly that team did. As dark as it is, I mean it feels, it is a horrendous loss no question about it. You lost to an opponent and it basically counts for a game and a half within your division. And it should hurt there is no question about it. You know to put it in perspective real easy for me–I am picking up coffee today, and I am in the drive-thru because I am not going to go out and get it, but that’s not the case. But anyway, I am in the drive-thru and someone in front of me picked it up. I appreciated it, I was like ‘Wow, I feel good.’ But that is kind of the way this town is. I am driving back, ‘We are going to get them next week, you are darn right.’ You know what, that is exactly how it is. It is one game, you know was it a bad loss? Absolutely, there is never a good loss, but this one was obviously a horrible loss. Our fans, I think I was disappointed for our fans as I am for our football team. We were there, we were wanting…they did everything they could to help us. But at the end of the day it wasn’t our day.

Q: Do you think how the Patriots kept Tyrod in the pocket you will have to make adjustments down the road for how to get him out of there?

A:  Well no. I think, yeah could we move the pocket? Yeah of course we could. You know the guys with that kind of movement skills, yeah. But we can do some things. We had some guys open. Sometimes I think we have to step up into the pocket a little bit and we had some guys open. So we can be better in a lot of those areas. But sure, every time it is on tape, unless you correct it you are going to get it over and over. That is just like in this game, obviously we are going to get slant, flat, whatever till the cows come home unless we fix it on defense. You know will they go to empty on us? Yeah, absolutely. So we have got to be better at a couple of those things, that is obvious or you are going to see it. And if you don’t fix it, it is going to happen to you over and over.

Q: Did you get the sense he was reluctant to leave the pocket?

A: Well no he was, but sometimes I think you got to step up into the pocket too. I think that is where…if I look at anything with Tyrod [Taylor] I’d like to see him step back, you know set up and then step up in the pocket a little more. But hey to their credit, I mean shoot they were buzzing, shoot they had eight sacks. They were clearing doing something right.

Q: Can you pinpoint how quickly things unraveled?

A: Well it did. And it can happen when you are facing a good team. We are up 7-0 and we get three and out, we get a great punt return past midfield and yet we get a penalty. And now instead of past midfield now you are backed up. It is things like that happen. And against a good team, you go six straight three-and-outs against that team. I got news for you, they had what a 13-yard, a 30-yard drive, it did, it just snowballed. But the thing I loved about our team we kept, we kept fighting, we kept finding, guys kept working, and we were trying to find a way to dig ourselves out. And it wasn’t like we were getting any charity from them. They were going to try and score 100 if they could, and that is what they should do. I would have loved to see us catch that ball and see what would have happened that last drive.

Q: What can you do or say to help control the emotions?

A: It is nothing that I can say about, we are still going to be it. I am not going to put a muzzle on our players. I think that is a…you know for me it allows a player if they want to say something they have all the freedom in the world to say it, just like I am going to. We are not going to say well that is why we lost the game that had nothing to do with why we lost the game. And that is the way it is. They out-played us, they out-coached us, they out did whatever. But you know there are different ways of chatting and all that type of stuff too. Let’s face it New England isn’t exactly the Boy Scouts of America, alright. You can say what you want. The tape doesn’t lie either.

Q: What steps can you take towards the penalties?

A: We will take them. If worse, I have been in the game a long time. I know somethings that take, if it takes us doing push-ups we will do push-ups too.

Q: Aaron?

A: Yes. Aaron [Williams] was in the building today. So he was cleared from the hospital and things, so that is real encouraging. He is just real stiff and sore right now, he has kind of got a little thing on his neck and stuff. So we will see how it progresses. But thank goodness he was cleared, so he is doing okay.

Q: Is it too early to question whether he might be available for Sunday?

A: I think that is probably a stretch. But yeah I think it is probably too early to see.

Q: Stretch?

A: For him to play I would think.

Q: Any other injuries?

A: Just some bumps and bruises and stuff like that. But not, nothing anywhere close as significant as Aaron’s.

Q: Penalties how do you deal with the number of them this team has gotten?

A: First off, I met with Danny [Crossman] today about our special teams penalties that seems to be a big thing. There is a big difference between being aggressive and being foolish. And I think that is the number one thing about our football team we have to understand. The second guy always gets the flag. Some fundamental things that you already know, everybody knows that we have got to be smarter at.  But the blocking in the back, it is killing us. And we have got to learn from it. And it happened in preseason games and you hope you learn from there, but it carried over. The kid is going to get, [Marcus] Thigpen is going to get at least a 20-yard return whether you block the guy, you don’t need that block and we have to be smart. Pass through the guy, run through it, just like you would, we don’t need to make big contact with the guy and those are things we have to understand and we have to get better at. You know some of the things we had technique things we had offensively, hand to the face, we got to lower our target some. Sometimes that happened, but we got to keep working it and keep getting better at those things. We had a couple of defense holding calls. Real unfortunate for us. One of them is a third-and-eight and we are holding a guy off at a third-and-two and he posts us with a hand. You know we fight the hand down and we grab a jersey at third and two and he ain’t going to catch the ball and if he does it is not a first down. We have got to be smarter at those types of things. There are certain calls or whatever that could have gone either way probably so. But you know what if they are close enough to call we have got to find a way to get better at it.

Q: How much to you hold Dan Carpenter accountable or is it just a factor of the new rule change?

A: Well no, I think Dan…he feels worse than anybody you know obviously. But he is a pro, he has been there, he has gone through things. We have confidence in him, we just got to get better at it, keep working at it. I know when it is right, when the time is right, the battery is right, he is a good as there is a kicker so it’s just a matter of him working through some things right now.

Q: Kyle Williams used the word embarrassing after the game, what is your reaction to that?

A: Well Kyle [Williams] is telling the truth. I think it was embarrassing you have that many penalties and getting scorched the way we did you know defensively, we take a lot of pride in the defense that we have. And you give up 460 yards passing I think that is pretty embarrassing. So I think the good about Kyle is he is telling you the truth. It was embarrassing but that doesn’t we are just going to…that it is going to be embarrassing the rest of the season. I can tell you this it is not going to be.

Q: The line between being overly aggressive and staying within the rules, is that what happened with Aaron Williams and his penalty there?

A: I don’t know. I don’t think I saw the whole thing. What I saw it looked like he was being physical, there is a little jawing and something like that. The flag came out, I don’t know what was said or anything else. I am not sure. Aaron [Williams] is a physical player, I like that. But we got another one on a return, I thought we had legal block but they called a penalty there and things like that. We had a player thrown out of bounds after the play was over and we got a 15-yard penalty. So there are things that are right there borderline but it seems like we are not going to get the break. So we got to, we have just got to be smart, we have got to learn to walk away from things and that is what we will do.

Q: Is that what led you to pull Aaron from the next series?

A: Well we just wanted him to relax and to catch a breath. Because he had a couple penalties and things like that. I think sometimes you do need to step away from it a little bit and then you come back in and you have had a chance to cool off a little bit. And by then we were going every three plays we were back out there on defense. So it was, I thought that was important to give him a little rest.

Q: Do you think officiating crews start to look for things when things like this happen a few times?

A: Sometimes. I believe that. Whether it is true or not I am not sure. But I think we have to fix it first. We have got to play…. We are still going to play physical there is no doubt we will play physical. And play the game the way the game should be played and that is what we will do. Like I said we have got to eliminate the foolish things and the after the play things or whatever. That is not being aggressive, that is being selfish more than it is being aggressive. And those are the things we have got to fix.

Q: How much does it sting this is your and Dennis’ defense?

A: Well no question, it is my defense and my team. So absolutely it stings, there is no question. They went for it a few times on fourth down. I am glad they did, it gave us a chance in the game. But you know again they obviously out executed us. They had a great plan, they out coached us, they out did everything. That day. That is what is comes down to. But yeah I have never given up that many yards in my life. Maybe two games combined or something. Does it sting? Will I remember it? Of course.

Q: Players said there were communications issues on defense is that normal putting in a new defense this early?

A: No I mean we have them ironed out, we thought. But we made some mistakes. It was clear… there is an old saying as long as you are all doing the same thing, you are singing out of the same hymnal that is fine. But you know we weren’t on a couple of cases. So obviously we have to get much better at that. And sometimes when you step in as a replacement player, you have to know your job. And if you don’t know your job, how can I trust you? I can’t play you and then you’re killing us. You are either going to do it or I am going to find someone else. Because the level of play for the guy coming up, and just like Bacarri Rambo when he stepped in last week after one play, he did an outstanding job. But you have got to be ready to go, mentally you have to be ready to go at all times. And if you go in as a replacement and you are not. Then you are hurting the team. But it has to maintain a certain level and mentally you have to be prepared.

Q: Reason for taking Seantrel Henderson off the field, I think I saw him throw up was there something on his jersey?

A: Nope, that was…it was interesting to me, but the official came to me and said your right tackle is throwing up. I looked, and I was like alright that happens you know. And apparently he did it two plays. I think, I appreciate the officials, the official is looking out for the player. I certainly understand that, and they thought maybe he was concussed or something like that I think that is why he took him off the field. I am not a 100% sure. But am I like ‘Seantrel [Henderson] are you okay?’ And he is like ‘Yeah I am fine.’ And he goes ‘I just got hit in the throat.’ And so I think that is what really happened there. But I think the officials are going err on the side of caution. Especially if it is the health of a player. And I certainly understand that.

Q: You said you wanted Tyrod to step up in the pocket, does his height have anything to do with that?

A: Well it is not ideal. Obviously you would prefer the guy to be 6-5 or whatever. But he has some many other attributes that are real positives.  But I think if we can step up a little more in there. And hey it probably wasn’t the most comfortable thing to be stepping up in the pocket when you gave up eight sacks. So that might have had something to do with it also. It is easy to set back and say that is clearly the answer, we have got to figure a way to make sure he can get a clean pocket.

Filed under: Buffalo Bills

Tagged with: Buffalo Bills, Rex Ryan