Rex Ryan Confident in his Jets Defense

September 16, 2012; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan looks on from the sidelines against the Pittsburgh Steelers during the third quarter at Heinz Field. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-US PRESSWIRE

Rex Ryan is usually his cool, lighthearted self when he comes to his press conferences, no matter the result of the previous game. Coming off of the game in Pittsburgh, Ryan was not his normal relaxed self. Understandably, he got a little bit testy when answering questions, specifically about the Wildcat. Who can blame him? It obviously can be frustrating to have to answer the same questions, nearly every day.

The frustration even spilled over to when he was talking about the defense. Take a look at what he had to say about it, when asked if he was concerned about the defense:

Bet against us, that’s all I’m saying. Bet against us, we’ll see where it ends up. I know where it’s going to end up. I tell you every year, it’s the same thing. We’ve had some issues. We couldn’t get off the field on a third down and that hurt us. The first game, you get four takeaways in a half, I think that’s pretty good. Up 41-7 on a team, we’ll take that in regards to how many yards you give up in that kind of game. I was pleased with the way our defense played. I would have liked to see us finish better against Buffalo, without question. In this game we did a lot of good things. I thought we were much more physical than we were the previous week, and that was good, and (we) stopped the run against a team that can run the football. Obviously, we have to improve third down, and we will.

He definitely is concerned. That “bet against us..” statement was a little too quick. He should be concerned, the defense did not tackle well at the end of the Buffalo game, and they did not tackle well at all during the Pittsburgh game. He has good reason to be concerned.

Sep 16, 2012; Pittsburgh , PA, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Heath Miller (83) catches the ball in front of New York Jets linebacker David Harris (52) during the second half of the game at Heinz Field. The Steelers won the game, 27-10. Mandatory Credit: Jason Bridge-US PRESSWIRE

For what it’s worth, David Harris feels confident that the mistakes can be fixed:

Yea they are. They’re all fixable. There weren’t any miss assignments or anything. It was just little things like technique. We tackled pretty good. We had a lot of guys on the ball. We were really physical up front. They made more plays then we did.

It’s good to be confident, but “we tackled pretty good” is being a little bit polite. They didn’t tackle “good” at all. We shall see what happens this week.