POSTED: Thursday January 21st 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York Jets Quotes - Defensive Coordinator Mike Pettine

January 21, 2010

On what Kerry Rhodes has done to improve…

I think he’s been a little more consistent. He’s been a little more focused. He’s done a nice job preparing. He’s come in and spent a little extra time with (defensive backs coach) Dennis Thurman. He’s gotten a little more dialed in to what we were doing game plan-wise and what the opponent presented.

On the cat-and-mouse game between the Jets defense and the Indianapolis offense…

It’s a huge part of the game, the scheme part of it. If (Peyton Manning) knows what you are in, then you are in a lot of trouble. You’ll see those drives. They’ll just go up and down the field. It’s critical for us to be able to disguise what we are doing, to mix up what we are doing and present different coverages to him. (Manning) along with (Tom) Brady, Philip Rivers, Drew Brees, those quarterbacks, if you just play conventional coverages against them: rush four, conventional coverages behind it, it’s going to get ugly. That’s always been our strength, that we were able to play some coverages, and do some things pressure-wise that looked different and were out of the ordinary.

On Mike DeVito…

Mike’s played well for us. He’s a guy that doesn’t say “boo” and wants to be coached hard and wants to get better every day. He’s constantly asking the right questions and is very hard on himself. You have to build Mike up. He can get down pretty easily if he makes a mistake. He takes it very seriously. He’s a guy who has really willed himself to be a better player. Here was a guy who was a street free agent that now is one of our better defensive linemen on a team that is in the AFC Championship game. He’s not just out there because we need 11. He’s out there and he does his job and does it well.

On whether DeVito will have an expanded role this week…

We will see how it goes with Shaun (Ellis). We’ve always rotated those guys anyway. It’s hard with Shaun lacking the ability to be able to grip, so I think we’re going to have to limit his reps some, between Mike, Sione (Pouha) and Marques (Douglas), I think we will be fine as far as eating those reps up.

On Bryan Thomas…

Bryan’s had an exceptional year for us, very quietly. One of the reasons it’s been quiet is that it hasn’t necessarily shown up on the stat sheet. He has had a lot of the thankless jobs for us, the buy-up two blocks or to loop around and contain the quarterback late in the down, hit a certain receiver and then go ahead and add to the rush late (in the play). He’s been given a lot of those jobs, and he’s done them really well. His strength is his versatility. He can be a stand-up outside linebacker and drop into coverage. He can put his hand down and be a defensive end, and on third down he can move inside and play the nose or play over the guard or the tackle. We can even stand him up and have him cover a running back. He’s a versatile guy, very similar to a lot of things we did with Adalius Thomas when we had him back in 2006 in Baltimore. The nice thing about it is we have two guys who actually have a skill set like that. We can do a lot of those jobs with Calvin Pace as well.

# # #

Keywords · New York Jets · NFL · Mike Pettine

Name: Erin O'grady
Organization: New York Jets
Email:
URL: http://www.jets.nfl.com

Please refer all questions to the company listed above issuing the press release. SFC will not be able to assist you with any inquiries and disclaims any content in these press releases.