New York Jets vs. Pittsburgh Steelers: Postgame Thoughts from MetLife

Oct 13, 2013; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (7) and New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan shake hands after the second half at MetLife Stadium. The Steelers won the game 19-6. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Here are some quotes from the players and the coach after today’s game. First from Rex Ryan on the lack of offensive rhythm:

Sometimes, you have to credit the defense. Their defense is outstanding. It’s consistent and (has) played that way for 15 years. We knew that we’d have to be patient. It wasn’t going to come easy, but you have to give them credit. Obviously, they did a better job of executing than we did.

This is what Geno Smith had to say about becoming consistent:

Well, it starts with practice. It starts with being consistent in practice and that’s what we try to preach here, is to always come out with the right mindset, being enthused for practice and it carries over into games. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline. It takes a tremendous amount of focus and effort. That’s all there is to it. You’ve just got to be consistent. It’s always those two or three plays in every single game that seems like we’ve got to avoid. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. Today we didn’t and I think we need to improve on that.

He also talked about why they didn’t have success throwing the ball downfield:

I think they did a great job just keeping guys in front of them. Like I said, their defense is smart, led by Troy (Polamalu) and Ryan Clark. Those two guys are, like I said, two of the best guys back there. They read and recognize plays better than most safeties do so they were able to keep guys in front of them and we had to dink and dunk it slowly matriculate and move the ball down the field, which we did for the most part, and then sometimes once we got down there we had the two turnovers which were bad on my part. Other than that, it was the game we expected, a hard-fought, grind-it-out game.

D’Brickashaw Ferguston talked about what went wrong:

Execution is always going to be important. If you’re deep in the red zone and the ball gets turned over, that’s going to be an issue. If there (are) penalties, that’s going to be an issue. If there are missed assignments, that’s going to be an issue. I think all of that played a role today and unfortunately, that led to our loss.

Was Cromartie’s knee bothing him today?

The knee didn’t affect anything at all. It was just me (needing to have) better technique on that one play and that’s it.