New York Jets Postgame Quotes 9/19

Postgame press conference
Thursday, September 19, 2024

After everything that you went through last year, to finally get a moment like this in this building, the fans chanting your name and all that, did it make it any more special for you?
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, it was a really special night. All those chants are really meaningful. I was kind of hoping for a stop there to be able to take a final knee on the field, but yeah, special night.

You talked about getting off to a fast start, is that what you had in mind?
Well, I would have loved to score on a first possession, but I felt like, I don’t think we had a three and out all night. Sounds about right, so we were efficient offensively, good on third down, spread the ball around a lot, ran the ball pretty well, pass protected pretty well. I moved out the spot a few times, halfway decent, so a lot of good things to build on from this game.

How did it feel for you to get out of the loop like that?
Yeah, it felt great. I was feeling real good out there. I felt good pregame and I’ve been progressing. I said to you guys after Week One, ‘It’s going to be a process of continuing to extend plays.’ Once I feel more comfortable and this was kind of the first step and playing like I know I’m capable of playing. It felt like I was myself quite a few years ago.

The tackle where you broke out to the left and then they brought you down as you were going out of bounds, was that a step, as well, for you to take that hit in that situation?
Yeah, it was on me. I mean I did the classic 2008 run to the sidelines and Julius Peppers drilled me, where I just kind of gave up, thought I wasn’t going to get touched. I am 40 and there’s really fast guys in this League, so I got to finish the play out of bounds, but yeah, every time I get drilled or tackled out of bounds like that, it’s another, beats the confidence for me.

On the touchdown to Allen (Lazard), you looked like maybe you changed the play because they blitzed on that play. I’m wondering if you saw that?
I mean we had him on a little bubble and we were actually running away from the pressure, but I just felt like we were going to have 10 guys on one side of the hash and it was one-on-one to Allen and that that would probably be the better option than the run away to a dropping and then a slanting like.

Allen immediately ran the ball to you. Did you let him know that the first touchdown here would have special meaning or anything like that?
I don’t remember saying that. I’m not sure if he had that in his mind, but I’ll take it. Thanks, Allen.

How did you feel after the first touchdown?
After the first touchdown, I felt good. I felt like we had a lot of good drives. We backed up a number of times and switched the field position and then got points out of drives. I wish maybe I’d thrown that ball to Mike (Williams) slightly more outside, but that would have been nice to get to 28-3. I’m proud of our guys. We’ve been improving, but it hasn’t been good enough for some people outside of the rooms, so to have a performance like tonight, I don’t know how many yards we finished with, but it feels really good.

The touchdown to Garrett (Wilson), you had gone to him the play before. He was upset that he just didn’t get into the endzone. That was a tight window, was it just a matter of you wanted to get him the ball in that play there?
No, it’s one of the QB mortal sins, pre-meditated decision. He kind of said something coming back to the huddle like, ‘Throw me the ball again,’ which is great, so I said, ‘Okay.’ So we had kind of a run-pass option there and he kind of got, he was maybe slow in his route a little bit, so I kind of double clutched it. He’s the type of guy where sometimes you feel like I’ve learned this, but a normal ball you think is going to be on target if foot in front of the numbers is sometimes behind him, so I’ve learned to throw it even wider than I actually think. I’m glad I did because (Christian) Gonzales was in a good spot there, G (Garrett) made just, for the mere mortal, really difficult catch, but for him, made it look easy.

Aaron, it seems like you guys, for whatever reason, started this year just a touch off. Do you believe that’s the case, how do you close that gap and once you guys do, what are you capable of as an offense?
The entire focus of all three defenses we’ve played had been taking Garrett away. It’s been Malachi (Corley) for his worst nightmare, lot of cover two. And when there’s times where you get high, we try to go to him, but a lot of too high in all three games. There’s shading to him, even with stood corners, look at (Charvarius) Ward in Week One and (L’Jarius) Sneed in Week Two and Gonzales in Week Three now. Not a lot of singles, so that’s a tribute to Garrett and his talent.

It was that awkward exchange with you and Robert (Saleh), you appeared to push him away?
No, there was nothing awkward at all.

(Follow Up) You pushed him away though when he went to hug you, what happened?
I didn’t know. He’s not a big hugger usually so I didn’t know he was going for the hug. He likes to do the two hand chest push, as well. But he talks a lot about two score leads, so I just kind of gave him a push and said, “Two score lead.” That’s what happened.

To do this on a short week too, how encouraging is that for you?
It’s great. Now, we got the benefit of playing at home, it’s easier at home on a short week. The schedulers made it difficult for us first three weeks, three games in 11 days and although we’d love to be 3-0, I think if you said 2-1 going into the mini bye, we would be feeling pretty good about things. Obviously, we got a nice little long break here and then Denver and then London game. There’s not a lot of normal, seven day week schedules for us, but it’s good though. I’m proud of our guys. I thought we played with a lot more energy tonight.

The team hasn’t had a lot of celebratory nights like tonight, how do you try to normalize this?
It’s expectations. If the expectation is winning, then we’re going to celebrate it, but we should expect a win. The next step is expecting to dominate.

Aaron, is part of the pregame not to think about last year. I’m curious just what were you feeling in that tunnel coming out before the game?
I was hoping I wouldn’t have to make a decision about whether to carry a flag or not because I was probably going to be the only guy that wouldn’t. I am stitious, maybe not superstitious, but I think I would have passed on that. I felt a really good calm about it honestly. I didn’t think a whole lot about it. Obviously, it was emotional to come back home for the first time since then, but I really think the first week kind of took a lot of the fears and anxiety of playing out and tonight I felt like I played pretty free.