New York Jets Offensive Coordinator Tony Sparano, 9.6

On how excited he is to unveil the game plan…

I’m just excited to be back in the game. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a real game, so I’m kind of excited about that. I talked to the players this week. There’s a different feeling when you cut the team down. It’s a hard day and certainly a hard day for the head coach, but once that’s over with you wake up the next morning and you’re like a kid at Christmas. For me, it was a little bit different, so I was kind of fired up about that. I’m excited to see the guys play. We’ve had all our guys out there now for a little while and they’re starting to work well together out there. There has been some good positive things in practice.

On Bilal Powell.…

Every time Bilal has played, since I’ve watched him, he has flashed at me in different ways. He has really good speed (and) good burst. He has blocked well. He has caught the ball well (and) showed me that he can run between the tackles and on the perimeter. I’ve been really impressed with what he has done. Whenever we put him in the game, he has made yards when there’s nothing there, or he has made hard yards. He’s blocked big people during the course of games (and) these are all things that we wanted to see coming into OTAs and out of OTAs when you’re in pajamas running around out there, and getting into pads and doing all that. It gives you a really good chance to see it and we’ve seen everything we need to see with him.

On his expectations for Shonn Greene…

I don’t like putting expectations on anybody. I’ve been down that road a few times, but I will say I’m excited about possibilities with Shonn. He is really impressing me right now. He has done a nice job. (Coach) Anthony Lynn has done a good job getting him ready, as well as Bilal, Joe (McKnight) and John Conner. This guy is built. He’s built the right way and he’s built for our style of football here. As long as we can keep the game in our kind of football game right now and do things the way we want to do things, I would expect that Shonn does well.

On Clyde Gates…

I can tell you a lot about him, but the biggest thing is on draft day when I was in that other place (Miami), it was the re-stacking of the board day. Round one had gone by and two and three had gone by. We had a great need for speed and Clyde was a guy that was not necessarily in our backyard. Texas is a big place, but we knew (in) Miami with our General Manager (Jeff Ireland) down there being from Abilene (TX), that Clyde was out there. We had enough information on him out there at the time, (with him being a) small school guy, (a) really big fish in a little pond out there. We spent a lot of time with him (at the) combine, Senior Bowl (and) all those different stops. We had an opportunity to visit with him at the Senior Bowl, spent a lot of time with him and picked his brain there. He’s a guy when we re-stacked the board and were looking for speed, that just jumped out at me. He was either the fastest or one of the fastest that year at the combine. We just knew he was a raw player, (who) needed to refine his skills. (We) had to be patient with him. Immediately, when you get a player like that in your system, you want to try to get him in. I probably didn’t do as good a job of getting him as I needed to. We had him returning kicks and we tried to get him in that way, but in order to get Clyde in, you were taking Brandon (Marshall) off (the field). At that point there, that wasn’t the best thing for our team. When he became available here, I was asked some questions about him in and I answered the questions. I just think (he’s) a young player with speed and upside. I think those are the kind of players at this time of year you take a shot on, then you see whether or not it pans out.

On if they’ll try to take advantage of Buffalo’s inexperienced cornerbacks…

It depends on what they do coverage-wise. I don’t know what they’re going to do coverage-wise, whether or not they’ll expose those guys. They’re two young corners, but they’re two good corners and I like both those players. Obviously, (Stephon) Gilmore’s a talented player, and (Aaron) Williams, we looked at him an awful lot in the draft and spent a lot of time with him as well. These guys are athletic and Leodis (McKelvin) goes inside for them (and) plays in the Nickel inside. I did a lot of work with him as a corner as well, he has played in both spots. They’re big, physical, (they) press people. They want to get in your face, impede you a little bit, do those things and use their length. From our end, we can’t allow that to happen. If we do that, that plays into their favor and then the pass rush becomes an issue. You’d like to be able to think that you can do some things that way in the pass game, but we’re going to work hard at it.

On Chaz Schilens…

He’s a big guy that can run. (He) blocks. He’s physical. He’s smart. He can play a lot of positions. Coming out of spring, he really had a good solid spring and then he had a couple injuries here that set him back a little bit. He missed some time. He did a lot of jobs for us. He was able to go inside and play. He was able to play outside (and) really play all three positions. There’s value to that, at the game, a guy (who) can play all three positions and do some things on special teams because he is a physical player. I think when you look at players like Chaz or PT (Patrick Turner), you want to start counting plays and see how many plays you might be able to get out of them in a game.  At this point, it’s early in the season and when you look at it from a physical standpoint, depending on the number of plays that you run, if you can run some of those guys in and out of there, but get enough jobs out of them, they’re not just one role players. I think that there’s good value to that.

On Mario Williams…

Well, this guy, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, he gets a lot of sacks for a lot of reasons. But he’s a talented, talented, guy. (He is) one of the best rushers that I think is out there in the game. We played him last year and we’ve played him the last couple years, actually, when he was in Houston.  He’s a hard guy to deal with.  I have a lot of confidence in our group up front.  I think our group up front is really starting to come together and play well once Austin’s (Howard) been put in there. I thought it was a heck of a job with Rex making that decision, getting him out there and us putting him out there and letting him play.  He’s played an awful lot certainly in the last couple weeks, but he’s played a lot period. I have a lot of confidence in him and in that group as a whole. Obviously, you have to have a plan against a player like that and you’ve got to know where he’s going to be. The preseason is the preseason. I’ve been trying to tell you that since the preseason started, so nobody wants to listen to that.  I don’t know if the guy is going to line up in one spot or five spots.  I know when I was part of the Dallas Cowboys, DeMarcus Ware was a talented guy, when they line him up in three or four different spots, it’s hard to find this guy.  I’m not sure how that’s going to go, but we’ve prepared ourselves for it.

On Jason Smith…

Yeah, he was definitely thrown in there.  He’s really done well. I’ve been pleased with what he’s done. All the new guys, Jason and Konrad (Reuland) and Gates.  These guys have all come in and they’ve picked things up really well.  I knew Clyde would have some carry over, but some of these other guys really hadn’t been exposed to some of that stuff. I think that Jason has had a little bit of terminology carry over.  I think he ran across Josh McDaniels somewhere there in St. Louis and there was a little bit of terminology carry over in a couple different areas, so that helped that way.  They work real hard and their coaches have worked real hard with them.  We have specific roles for those guys right now.  It’s a little bit easier when you’re learning to game plan like this as opposed to that big book that they get handed in training camp.  That gets overwhelming I think.

On if the Wildcat can distract an offense from learning the primary offensive plays…

No, I don’t think so.  I think offensively, it just becomes part of what you do, if that’s what you choose to do. It’s not different than turning around and handing the ball off on a regular lead play or something like that. It just becomes another run or another throw, whatever it is you’re going to do with it.  I think from a defensive standpoint, the packages that you could give and the number of personnel groupings that you could get and those type of things and the moving parts, who’s where and why and what they’re doing, I think that’s the thing that you have to prepare for.  So many defenses try to match the play.  This was a big Bill Parcells thing.  I mean, everybody tries to match every play with, I want that guy on that guy, and this guy on that guy, and this guy on that guy.  I think, when you’re into those packages and you’re moving parts around it makes it a little more difficult, which is why they have to spend more time than we have to spend certainly on it, if that’s what you choose to do.

On why he continues to use a balanced offense when the rest of the NFL uses a more pass based offenses…

This game is played in three phases, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.  We’re blessed here to have a tremendous defense.  I mean, that group I’ve had to prepare for and as I’ve said before, they cause a lot of problems, they occupy a lot of time. You have to spend a lot of time.  If you’re a quarterback watching that film, and I’ve had some pretty smart quarterbacks watching film of the Jets or Baltimore or some of these teams, Pittsburgh’s defense, some of those kinds of defenses.  When you’re watching those types of defenses, you’re spending a lot of time doing that, that can be overwhelming in itself.  From our end right now, I just really believe that with our defense, our special teams, if we take care of the football and play the type of football that we’re capable of playing on offense, we’ll be fine. (Our) numbers will be fine and we’ll take care of the things that we need to do.  And we have to do that, we have to pull our weight.  Our guys know that, I know that, I’m aware of that and we have to be able to certainly do that.  And if we can do that, with the type of people we have on defense and with our special teams, that will be nice.  I had many opportunities in these last few games, where you see some of these kickoff returns come out and you’re playing on the 40-yard line in some of those situations, so that’d be nice.  Those are all good weapons to have.  I think that formula, with our style of offense, works.  And you can go back and look at history and see whether or not it works.  I mean, I get it. The Pittsburgh Steelers they’ve won a lot of games, they throw the football (but) they run the football well too.  Those Baltimore teams, they ran the football well.  These teams that are playing in January (and) February, those types of teams, they do it that way.  They’re going to throw the ball (and) we’re going to throw the ball our share.  I said it before, it’s not going to be the wing-T out there this weekend. (laughter)

Defensive Coordinator Mike Pettine, 9.6

On if anything has changed since last year in preparing for the Bills…

No, they returned 10-of-11 starters. The only difference being the rookie tackle (Cordy Glenn) who did a good job in the preseason. This is an offense, they believe in what they do and they do it well. They led the AFC in rushing a year ago. They’ve had some success in the passing game as well. I think (in their) situation, they felt like they didn’t need to change much. They’re about execution, they don’t change a lot week-to-week and that’s been his (Bills Head Coach Chan Gailey) MO (since he’s been there). A lot of times it’s the same plays maybe dressed up a little bit differently but it’s all about execution and they do it well.

On how he plans on replacing Eric Smith’s role…

Typically in a situation like that, we do it by committee. A lot of the jobs closer to the ball can be handled by a linebacker, some of his deeper jobs are handled by a DB (defensive back). So we have some different groupings that I think kind of cover it all. It’s been a credit to the guys that have practiced those spots that have done a good job. We feel very confident going in that while we’ll miss him (Eric Smith) that we think that the guys replacing him will do a solid job. Again, it’s not one guy, it’s a couple of different groupings that will handle it all.

On why the defense has been so successful against Buffalo recently…

I think that the secondary matchup has been good for us. Our guys have played well in the back-end. We’ve been able to get to the quarterback and a lot of times, it’s not necessarily sacking him. They led the league last year in fewest (sacks) allowed. But I think we’ve been able to pressure (RyanFitzpatrick) and it wasn’t necessarily with having to send everyone to do it. We’ve rushed the passer well. We’ve done a good job picking and choosing when we would pressure or give the appearance of it and gotten some guys free to him and forced him in to some bad throws. I think it starts with defending the run. This is a team that as I said, they run the ball well. We’ve been able to avoid giving up the big run against them which I think helps us in the pass game.

On if Sione Po’uha can’t play on Sunday…

I think one of our strengths is the depth that we have there (on the defensive line). Between Kenrick (Ellis), I feel very confident given the camp and the offseason that he’s had, (Mike) DeVito, Marcus Dixon, (Quinton) Coples, all of those guys. This is a game where it’s more of a sub situation where we’re not necessarily going to be in base defense a lot. So I think that plays to us a little bit in that a lot of the groupings were going to have out there aren’t going to have that many defensive lineman.

On Josh Bush…

I think that’s one of his strengths is that he’s shown it’s not too big for him, on the big stage. We’re not going to put him out there and say hey you have to play a whole game. It would be a defined role. To me, that’s one of the things that we liked about him coming out was his football aptitude. He’s picked up the system  very well. That’s a big part of it, is having guys out there that you trust (and) they know what to do. He’s been very un-rookie like in that way. He’s had very few mental errors.

On why Marcus Dixon was cut…

That’s not a question for me. As the cliché goes, (that’s) above my pay grade. The guys that are sitting in the room, we coach them as best that we can.

On if the defense accomplished what it wanted to this offseason…

We did. I think the big part of what we wanted to do was get the safeties acclimated. I think we’ve done a great job of that between Dennis Thurman and Jimmy O’Neil and Brian Smith. They’ve put in a lot of extra time with those guys, getting them up to speed. Especially LaRon (Landry), who was not here (he) was rehabbing offsite in the offseason. A credit to those players as well that they’ve put in the time. That to me was the biggest concern was getting those guys up to speed. We have a lot of things that have some moving parts. That being said, we’ve scaled some things back. We wanted to get some games under our belt and not throw too much at them. The problem for us is having a great crowd. It’s the crowd noise and that affects us defensively, so (in) our communication, we have fewer calls that have multiple moving parts. We didn’t want to get in the situation where things were great here and we can hear ourselves and then all of a sudden we get out there and have trouble communicating. That was the biggest part for us was getting the safeties involved and getting them up to speed. I think having the offseason was really helpful for us because I think it’s to our advantage because we have so many of our players here during the offseason whereas other teams might only have close to everybody there for the mandatory three days whereas we had virtually 100 percent attendance. We were in the high 90’s (percentage) attendance wise. That’s great for us because by the time that we get to training camp and I’m going through the installs, it’s the fourth time that they’re hearing it.

On Landry’s reputation as a box safety…

We never thought of him as a box safety. Here’s a guy who ran sub-4.4 (40-yard dash time) coming out, has great range. To me, he’s a complete safety because he’s an excellent blitzer, his man-coverage skills are solid, that was one of the things that we studied when we looked at him on tape and he played a lot where he was in a two-shell and had to come off the landmark on the hashmark and play number one down the boundary and there’s no issues with his range. Even in the middle of the field, the balls thrown, he’s breaking on the throw, and he’s standing on the boundary. His closing speed to me has been what’s impressive. We never thought of him as a box guy and Yeremiah’s (Bell) the same way. I think Yeremiah’s a complete player as well. He can blitz, he can cover. I’ve been asked that question before, ‘Why do you guys have three box safeties?’ We never for a second thought of it that way.

On if he has to push Coples’ effort more in practice…

Yes, but he’s getting better. I just think maybe in his mind, he thinks it’s good enough. That’s a common thing with rookies, their idea of what’s good enough and our idea of what’s good enough (is not the same). We just have to get their (idea of what’s good) elevated. I think the other players have been helpful too, putting the example on tape. Most guys are going to do what’s asked of them and this is one thing we are going to be sticklers on, be demanding (about). Again, he has already shown improvement since it was first brought up.

On Buffalo’s Wildcat…

I think it’s helped us because otherwise we would have had to manufacture those reps against a scout team, and you’re not always going to get the best look, whereas, a team is running it, whether it’s in training camp, or post training camp and you’re going good against good. It’s a much better look, it’s full speed. Again, having a guy here like Tim (Tebow) has been tremendous for us, just in preparation for that. Again, people said I’m not sure if Brad Smith is going to go but they’ve run different forms of it, so we’ve prepared for it for what they’ve done and anticipated the things they might do. Again, it’s me from a prep standpoint that the most beneficial thing is being able to practice it, good against good.

On self-scouting with Tony Sparano…

We’ve talked. They bring their material with them, probably more. I spent some time with Tony (Sparano) Jr., just talking about what are some of the things he had, as far as building a book on our defense. We’ve shared some information back and forth. There were games where they had more success against us, and vice versa, so it was good. It was more so in the spring, but we had some good opportunities to share some info.

On the matchup between Stevie Johnson and Darrelle Revis…

I mean, we all know how competitive he is (Darrelle), so I think we’d all be hitting ourselves if we didn’t think that he’s heard that. I’m not going to speak for exactly what’s going through his mind. I just know how extremely competitive he is. That’s what makes him great, is how that level of competitiveness, it shows even in practice. Our game plan is pretty normal as far as there’s going to be some calls he’s matching on, some calls he’s not. I know that’s a vague answer, but it’s really going to depend on the call. It depends on them as far as where they line him up.

On scaling back the defense because of new faces…

Yeah, to me, it’s not just LaRon (Landry), it’s also Yeremiah (Bell) and (Quinton) Coples. We do have some new faces. Again, Buffalo is a team where they’re only in a handful of personnel groupings, so we were able to scale it back from a plan standpoint. The focus is more on the stuff defending the spread, then our base defense. The nice thing about our base defense is we’re just coming out of training camp where we had multiple practices going against a two-back offense, going against two tight ends, which Buffalo does not do a lot of. If it turns into a game where we’re getting a lot of that, we’re fresh off of preparing for that. I don’t think a lot of the calls that we didn’t have up, necessarily for this plan, are easily resurrected. That’s the nice part about coming out of camp because your first couple of games, you’re always going to have access to an inventory of calls. It’s probably a little more than what you actually put in the book.

On the play calling between he and Coach Ryan…

It is really not going to be that different than what we have done in the past.  We use the word collaboration and that is the way we do it.  There are some opponents I have a better feel for that I will do the bulk of it and vice versa.  Sometimes it is during a game, we will switch it in game, but again we will always talk and have a plan for it and I think that is the strength of what we do is that we have the ability to bounce calls off of each other.  When the offense is up, we almost have a game plan meeting over the headset, ‘what are we thinking about the next third down. Do you like this? Here is what I like.’  We bounce it back and forth and I think it has worked for us.  It worked for us before and again with Rex this year, people have used the phrase more of an active role, his active role to me has been more across the team.  He has always been very involved defensively, but he has been in with the offensive meetings and more involved in the special teams stuff.  I don’t think there is anyone more excited about the season starting than Rex.  He did what he said he was going to do and has really immersed himself back in it.

On if Coach Ryan will do more play calling this season…

I think that is a little overblown.  It is basically what it has been and again, it will all depend on the opponent.  Sometimes it is in game, sometimes I take first and second down, he will take third down or vice versa or, ‘hey, it is a two minute, you take it.’  We are ego free when it comes to that.  To me, a lot of times and I explained this before, the calls are already predetermined in a lot of situations.  The ball is on this hash mark, in this area of the field with this personnel grouping, this down and distance, we have already met and agreed on what it would be so it is basically a matter of who is reading it off the sheet.  The game plan, especially if a team is sticking to tendency, is almost on autopilot at times.  Third downs we will sometimes script out how we are going to call them but again there are a lot of different combinations on how we do it.  Again it is something we didn’t feel was broken so there was really no need to fix it.

On how much Bart Scott will be used…

A good amount.  We are all about earning playing time and guys that are playing well are going to be out there.  We are always in the mode of best 11.  Sometimes hard decisions have to be made when guys are not playing well, but I think that is what happened at the end of last year, not to continually revisit that. I know Bart probably doesn’t want to bring it up either.  You get in a situation where you are not playing well, the tough decisions have to be made of this particular game or this particular match up, it is hard to justify having somebody out there who is not playing at a peak level.  I anticipate Bart being out there a lot.  Again, given the time of year and playing up tempo offenses and things like that, I don’t know if anyone is going to play a full game, other than the corners.  Even the safeties you are going to try and roll them some.  Again, from a conditioning standpoint, the heat, you could see it last night, both of those teams you could tell got a little heavy legged in the fourth quarter, that is key for us is the ability to roll guys through, defensive line, linebackers, whatever it is.  Bart is a big part of what we do, he is the emotional leader of the defense.  We are going to have him out there a lot.

On if the Bills having both C.J. Spiller and Fred Jackson on the field at the same time makes it difficult…

It does, because Spiller is one of the few players in the NFL that has legitimate wideout skills, but also has legitimate running back skills. That makes it very difficult when he is in the back field. You want to treat them like a back and when he’s out of the back you want to treat him like a wide receiver. That sometimes makes for a tough matchup, because when he is in the back field you want a linebacker on him. When he’s out of the back field, you want a defensive back on him. You don’t want the reverse to be true. We’ve spent a decent amount of time and energy planning for that. They showed it a year ago. They’ve also showed it again this preseason having them both out there together, and that’s certainly to their advantage.

On if they have confidence in Demario Davis…

We do. Again, he had been set back at the beginning of camp, and I think he’s been playing catch up ever since. I think he’s responded well and I think in a very limited role he can be very effective for us.

On leadership within the defense…

Yeah, but I think it’s really on all four that are back there, even five, when Kyle (Wilson) is back there. I think what’s helpful now is that the corners know the system so well, and they know that they’re in there with new safeties. A lot of the times, the corners would have looked back at Eric (Smith) or Jim (Leonhard) and waited for the call to be given to them, ‘Hey how are we playing this?’ whereas now, they can give it. Again, I think they’ve all bought in and I feel like there’s ownership, like ‘Hey listen, I’ve got two guys that are first year in it, let’s help them along.’ (It’s the) same thing going on up front, or even with the linebackers, where they know what it should be. These guys realize this check needs to be made quick, so if I know it, I’m going to make it. We didn’t load everything on them and say ‘Hey listen, you’re two new guys, we’re waiting for you to tell us what to do.’ They both picked it up. It’s one where I think guys did a better job knowing we were going to have two new safeties, kind of learning a whole new defense, so everyone was kind of on the same page.