Today's practice had it's Penance for Penalties

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Today’s Practice Had Its Penance for Penalties

Posted by Randy Lange on September 16, 2010 – 4:49 pm

Rex Ryan, blunt trauma personified, said today’s second practice of Patriots week “wasn’t a great practice.” But it was a longer practice than usual, in part that was because Ryan and his coaches administered some “tough love” to their offensive and defensive units.

“If we didn’t convert on a third down, we repeated those plays,” the head coach said. “If we had a penalty on defense, we had some ‘tough love’ or whatever. We went back to grade school — OK, I’ll be honest. If a guy was penalized, we had him circled by his teammates and he had to count pushups. … It’s an old high school trick, but sometimes those high school tricks still work on this level.”

DC Mike Pettine said unlike the offense, which in training camp since Eric Mangini, it seems, ran penalty laps, the defense today went with the 10-pushup penalty — for all the players who didn’t commit the penalty — as a calling card after the 14-penalty, 125-yard team showing in the 10-9 loss to Baltimore.

“I just think the number of penalties we had, we just wanted to have something as a reminder,” Pettine said. “Not just talk about it but to have something so the guys would know to give a little more thought to it. Sometimes the way games are being called, you’ve got to be clean with your technique, you’ve got to be perfect. If some of those penalties had gone the other way, it would’ve been a different result.”

Linebacker Bryan Thomas, coming off an outstanding individual game, didn’t seem opposed to the high school approach.

“Penalties — that was just the focus of emphasis,” said “BT.” “That was ridiculous, all those penalties. They really hurt us. We can’t put ourselves in a hole, we can’t let the other teams out of crucial situations like we did Monday night.”

It was a rare performance for the “D,” which contributed seven of the penalties and 75 of the yards marked off by ref Walt Anderson and his crew. The last time the Jets had as many defensive penalties in a game was at Chicago in 1997; the last time as many flags in a home game was vs. Indianapolis in ’95.

As for the yardage, the last time the Jets defense had more was the 82 yards (on three penalties) at Houston in ’95. And, you ask, the last time the Green & White D rang up more penalty yardage at home? You’d have to go all the way back to 1987 and the first replacement game, against Dallas, when they yielded 105 yards on four flags.

We’ll see if the tough love brings positive results against New England at New Meadowlands Stadium on Sunday. As Ryan said:

“Whatever it takes to solve this thing, we’re going to do.”

BT Express

Ryan had high praise for Thomas, who had a career type of line against the Ravens. The ninth-year man had eight tackles, one sack (he lost his extra half-sack to Shaun Ellis on a scoring change) and a pass breakup, and he was in on five tackles at or behind the line of scrimmage on Ravens runs.

“Bryan definitely had his best game since I’ve been here — what a game he played,” Ryan said. “We got calls from some of the old players [he coached] with Baltimore and they were ravin’ about how BT played. He was outstanding in the run game, pass-rush wise, coverage — he did it all, he really did.”

“You don’t want to look at individual things,” Thomas said. “The most important thing was the win. The main thing was I wanted to get the win for Rex and the other Baltimore guys on our team.”

Now Thomas and the Jets have trained their sites on the Patriots.

“These are the games that wins are important, but the teams that are in your division, they’re that much more important. And just looking at the Patriots’ offense, they’ve just got so many weapons — they create weapons. They’ve got guys all over the field, and Tom Brady, he knows how to find his receivers.”

Rex was asked the predictable question about how important it was to beat the Patriots to avoid falling into an 0-2 hole. The coach redefined the answer as only he can.

“Is it absolutely a must-win, absolutely must have it?” Ryan said. “No … but it kind of feels like it.”

Health Watch

Ryan threw a new wrinkle — and a jolt — into his injury report when he announced up top at his news conference today that Darrelle Revis was on the report as limited during team drills with a tight hamstring. Having said that, both Ryan and Revis in a late afternoon podium news conference both said it was tightness, not a pull, and neither expected him to be limited against Randy Moss, Brady and the Pats.

“I’m not overly concerned right now,” Ryan said, “but anytime it’s a hamstring, you get a little nervous.”

Other than that, LB Calvin Pace (foot) remains out and S Brodney Pool (ankle) was still limited, but Ryan said Pool “seemed like he did better today than he did yesterday. Hopefully he’s improved to where he can play.”

McGahee Trivia

Before we depart Baltimore Station completely for Foxboro, two small items on Ravens RB Willis McGahee. One was his stat line: six carries for minus-2 yards, one reception for minus-6 yards, thus seven touches for a career-low minus-8 yards … and the game’s only touchdown.

And that TD continued a trend for the eighth-year back. He’s played the Jets eight times in his career. Whenever he’s scored a touchdown (with Buffalo in ’04, ’05 and ’06, Baltimore in ’07 and this year), his team has won: 5-0. Whenever he’s kept out of the end zone (’04, ’05, ’06 with the Bills), his team loses: 0-3.

[JustInFudge]

Bryan Thomas was playing out of his mind the other night...he looked like an elite OLB that game. Him and Bart Scott were extremely physical at the LOS. And I hate to see it, but so was the mother ******* fag JT.

Whatever, it was an ugly game. A game we should have won. Move on. Beat the Pats and all is forgiven.

[CTM]

No snacks after practice?

[SenorGato]

Bryan Thomas was playing out of his mind the other night...he looked like an elite OLB that game. Him and Bart Scott were extremely physical at the LOS. And I hate to see it, but so was the mother ******* fag JT.

Whatever, it was an ugly game. A game we should have won. Move on. Beat the Pats and all is forgiven.

Srsly...When I saw #58 making plays I was like "who the f*ck is this 58 character?" Turns out he's the Former Biggest Bust in Jets history...Still on the roster 8 years later doing his thing.

If Thomas plays like that for a full season then holy sh*t I just may fall in love with this D. Imagine he plays like that when Pace comes back...:drool:

Too bad everyone was too busy whining and complaining this week to notice and give him his 12 threads.