John has taken care of the game in quite some detail, so won't go back over it, tough loss obviously, but if you would of said you will go 3-1 after the first four games of the season before we started, I would of taken it with no hesitation.
A few members of the Saints defence had some words for Mark Sanchez after a game in which he looked like the rookie he is
Darren Sharper on if Sanchez was staring down receivers:
"I don’t want to say that he eyed his receivers. At certain times, all quarterbacks know where they are going with the football. When he has two receivers on one side and a tight end on the other, you can kind of figure out where he is going to throw the football. He actually did a great job of trying to not look off, but you can use reverse psychology when they try to look you off and then go the opposite way."
We can't get on Mark Sanchez too much but he does need to look off his receivers, especially in the red zone where he stared down Keller. He will learn from this but Sharper is a hell of a player, and you need to be clever with the ball which Sanchez wasn't yesterday.
Can read a lot more after the jump
Jonathan Vilma on Sanchez:
"We saw that he looked at his receivers and that’s almost natural for a rookie," Vilma said. "That’s what they’re going to do. Obviously they’ll get better as they keep going."
During Rex Ryan's news conference he touched on a few things, but one of the ones that I want to bring to you is his opinion on the offensive line, a unit that for the third straight week, under-performed:
"Sometimes it didn’t even look like it was the offensive line. They had some free runners at our quarterback. They did a good job studying tape and recognizing some of those things. They did a nice job of the pressures. They had some free runners on our quarterback as well. Don’t blame that on the offensive line all total. Once we see film, I’m sure our guys will agree that we can play better in a lot of phases of this game."
I don't like to put the blame on individuals but for as much as Mark Sanchez has to take that one, the offensive line really needs to step there game up and start producing. They were actually very poor in my opinion, didn't do a good job of picking the blitz up at all. Not sure if you guys saw the Steelers/Chargers game last night, but that Steelers offensive line was just tremendous. You can't just look at the sack total with that unit because a lot of the sacks come as a result of Big Ben holding the ball far too long.
However before you get too down, look at Sanchez's comments, he knows immediately where he went wrong and I'm sure he is already working to improve, when asked to comment on the pick 6 to Sharper, Sanchez said:
"That’s a classic rookie quarterback looking at his receiver. Sharper read me the entire way. He saw my eyes and I threw it right to him. There’s absolutely no excuse for that. It was a poor decision and a poor use of my eyes."
Bart Scott showed that the team is 100% behind Sanchez, and realises that it's just one game and that it was unlikely we were going to go 16-0, so now we just have to go 15-1:
"We are behind that kid (Sanchez) 100 percent. There’s no need for panic. We are not going to go off course. You will not find this team getting off the bandwagon. We believe in our scheme and we believe in each other."
"Honestly I thought we were going to come in here and leave with a victory and then go undefeated. Today the Saints were the better team. So now we will leave this game, learn from the experience and try and go 15- 1.
"I thought our defense played enough to win. I’m not going to make a big deal and criticize what happened. It happened and now we have to regroup. We have a big divisional game next week, on a Monday night, on the road, in Miami, and that’s what we have to get ready for now. Give the Saints credit, they were the better team today."
Rex Ryan had some good things to say about what was for me, the big bright spot on the day and that was the inclusion of Shonn Greene. I have been calling and waiting for him to get some action, and when he did he looked good doing it. Didn't realise that he tweaked the ankle, but hopefully it's not too serious and he is ready to go next Monday which in my opinion is a very important game, lose that one to Miami and were 3-2 and the division is split wide open again:
"This kid is a good running back. He’s got some explosiveness. I just thought that we wanted him to get in the game last week. We were able to get him in there today. I thought he did some nice things for us. He kind of tweaked that ankle a little bit later in the game, but I thought he did some nice things. We have three backs that can run that we’re going to play. It’s good to see that we played all three, because I think this kid has a chance. He’s a good back. Obviously, we have two Pro Bowl backs, but I think this kid can play. You’re never going to find out until you throw him in there."
Dan Leberfeld noted that Damien Woody was wearing a brace as he left the dome yesterday:
New Orleans - Jets right tackle Damien Woody hurt his right ankle in the second half of the Jets loss to the Saints. He never came back in the game. He was seen leaving the Superdome limping on the ankle and with a brace on it. It's unknown whether he will miss any games, but if he does, the Jets have a pretty good backup right tackle in Wayne Hunter.
Some people seem to like Hunter, but put a speedy pass rusher on him and I'm afraid Mark Sanchez might need a ambulance standing by, I still remember him giving up at least 2 sacks in the pre-season. One great thing about Woody is that he has excellent foot work, he has a excellent shuffle to the outside, Hunter always struck me as being heavy footed, using his upper body power trying to blow everyone backwards, sometimes in a pass situation you just need to cut off the direct route and divert the rusher away instead of trying to run through him. We will have to wait and see on the Woody injury, but it doesn't sound very good.
I don't understand the 3rd and one pass calls, on both those drives we were moving the ball on the ground well, we knew that the Saints were getting to Sanchez. On the first one on first and second down we had recorded rushed of 6 yards and 3 yards, and on the 2nd pass call on 3rd and one, we had just had a 7 yard run by Leon. I like Schotty, he is a good coordinator, however in a hostile environment with your rookie QB on the ropes you don't tell him to come out swinging. You put the guard up force the offensive line to do there work give it to Jones behind Richardson and let them get that yard, buy some time and then love to fight another day. Very poor calls by Schotty, was a case of trying to be too clever when all that was required was a little smash mouth football.
Got to give credit to a few players on defence, Bryan Thomas firstly, thought he had a excellent game. Revis and Harris of course. On the other side big Jenks made a huge mistake with the offside on 4th and one, we had been stopping them all game, you knew the hard count was coming. Coleman, not a starter in this league by any means, takes bad routes to the ball. All in all 10-10 without the turnovers, and holding this offence to 10 points is a big thing for this defence. Who should be getting Sheppard back next week as well as Calvin Pace which is just a excellent feeling to have.
We found it tough in the big easy, but we will be back, next up some fish!