Despite Lack of Success, Mark Sanchez and Rex Ryan Still Confident

July 27, 2012; Cortland, NY, USA; New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez (6) and head coach Rex Ryan look on during training camp at SUNY Cortland. Mandatory Credit: Rich Barnes-US PRESSWIRE

It has been a tough road so far for Mark Sanchez and the Jets offense. No touchdowns to date, obviously Mark Sanchez and Rex Ryan are not happy. Mark Sanchez and the first team offense have one more dress rehearsal before week one against Buffalo, and that is Saturday night against the Carolina Panthers. They have to get better.

Despite all of this, Mark Sanchez and Rex Ryan are still feeling pretty confident about where they are. Here is what coach Ryan had to say when asked if the offense’s progress is behind what they expected. His answer might be a little surprising:

No, I wouldn’t say that at all. When you look at it, yeah you would like to score 40 points or something. It’s a work in progress. It’s not even the fact that we’re not showing everything. That’s not it. I see some of the things that we’re stressing. For instance, Nick Mangold, that might have been the best game that I’ve seen Nick Mangold play and here’s a Pro Bowl center, the way he was blocking downfield on plays. I see us doing some little things that are going to pay dividends for us in the long haul. I see us getting movement on the double teams, all of those type of things. I see Shonn Greene running behind his pads again. There were positive things. Now, there were some negative things. Everybody in this league is going to get beat. Even Darrelle Revis gets beat. Brandon Moore gets beat. It’s very rare for both those guys. But you come back and you play fundamentals. You clean up your fundamentals. That’s something where we have to fall back on. We talk about Wayne Hunter where he got beat by (Jason) Pierre-Paul. He’s not the only one in the league that’s going to get beat by Pierre-Paul. That is one heck of a football player. With that said, could his fundamentals be better? Of course, absolutely. That’s what I’m stressing to him. We’ve got to get back to playing technique and fundamentals. It’s not just him, it’s across the board. We’ve got to get better at our techniques and when you get beat, you’ve got to rely on those even more and more.

Rex believes that it is more about lack of technique, rather than progress. They are where they need to be with the learning, but not the executing.

Mark Sanchez had a similar answer when talking about whether the mistakes have been physical or mental:

A lot of it is the physical part of it. The throw to PT (Patrick Turner) is a great example. Can I make that throw 100 out of 100 times? Absolutely. Was it a bad read? No way. (It was) a great read, I just put it out in front of him. It has to happen in a game. Everybody is telling you, hey you’re nine-for-11, that’s great. You can’t miss. You can’t miss that one. It just shows you how fragile it is, but Rex made a really good point today in our meeting. He really tried to drive home the point of when things do go bad, when you throw a ball behind a guy, you miss a pass, you drop a ball, it’s not time to make anything up. There is no new throwing motion that I’m going to try to find. There’s not a new footwork that I’m going to make up right there. (We need to) snap right back into what we know. That’s the great coaching we have. That’s our fundamentals. That’s really how we can stay sharp. You try and eliminate mistakes, but they’re going to happen. They’re bound to happen. It’s a long game and there are a lot of plays, but as soon as they happen we have to come back and really get back to our fundamentals. That’s where the challenge is.

Hopefully, they can get the fundamentals back down, and do it soon. They have time, but they don’t have a lot of time to get it together, as they likely won’t play much, if at all, in the final preseason game. Next week is it.

At least Rex is not overconfident about the right tackle position. Does he know if Wayne Hunter will start week one?

I’m not going to paint myself in a corner because things happen.