How confident were you that you guys were going to go up the field and score when you went in for that last drive?
I'm always confident when we take the field we're going to score, now it doesn't happen every time. Yeah, we had to make a couple plays there, G (Garrett Wilson) did some squirrely stuff down the field and made a great adjustment. And Mike (Williams) gave a chance on the ball and came down with it. That was nice. Those were two big plays and then we blew a hole on the right side to put it in.
Aaron (Rodgers) even though you've done this a little bit, what does first win as a Jet mean in uniform for you?
Technically, my second. Somehow that first one counts. It feels great. Been a long time coming. I was telling Evan (Washburn) postgame on the field, "I haven't had that in a long time." Being able to have that energy on the field after the game means you won. It means you played halfway decent. It's good to get a win. These are kind of the games you look back on late in the season and be thankful that you won these. Because if we want to be a great team, we got to win in these types of environments against teams like that.
What did you think of Braelon (Allen)?
Braelon, yeah, he's what we saw in training camp, he just had more opportunities today. I thought it was a super athletic play on the screen to get in the end zone. We checked a run into a nice side on the right side. Not sure where the tight end was but it felt like Morgan (Moses) and AVT (Alijah Vera-Tucker) opened a hole, and he just needed a little bit of space because he's so big and strong and you just can't tackle him high. So, really proud of him. He's a great kid and cares about it a lot. Happy for him.
He called you the "conductor," and talked about your calming presence. Why is that important when you get in a situation like that?
A lot of times people freak out. You have to be the calming force in there, you can see it in their eyes sometimes. I feel like all game, we were frustrated at times, but never got down on each other. I felt like we were very supportive and playing positive, even though we were frustrated not getting G (Garrett Wilson), I was frustrated not getting G (Garrett Wilson) enough balls. We didn't run the ball very well in the first two and a half quarters, I think. We stayed confident and the defense came up with a couple really big plays in the first half, keeping it a one score game. The touchdown in the second half on the first drive was important for confidence.
Aaron, you preach "being patient, don't panic, be calm and relaxing" all that stuff from a few years ago. Was today some degree of a microcosm of that whole vibe so to speak?
I think so. Again, these are really important games late in the season when you are trying to get in the playoffs looking back. It was a hot day, short week, very good defense, started off really slow, but finding a way to win, that's what really good teams do. Now great teams, when you're up 14-10 and you block a punt, you score a touchdown to go up two scores. We're not quite there yet, but good teams can close out games in tough environments. We will be really thankful for this one down the road.
On the Breece (Hall) touchdown, obviously he split wide on a linebacker, did your eyes light up when you saw that? Did you expect that guy to be on him? How did that evolve?
I'll tell you exactly how it evolved. I screwed up the clock, and we called a timeout, and Breece (Hall) comes over and goes, "Hey, throw me a go ball if there's a backer out there." I said, "Okay." So, he split out there, they walked a backer out there, and I drop back and looked inside for a second. By the time I looked to him he was three or four yards past him, and I didn't throw him the best ball but he made a nice catch.
The process of getting this offense to the level you feel it needs to be to become the team you want to be, where do you think you are in that process?
Early in the process, unfortunately. We haven't put it together. We have some times in games where we are moving it pretty well. But we just haven't been consistent enough in the passing game or the run game.
Why is that?
I think we are going to look back at the end of the season and know that those are two really good defenses. Whether they are top-10, top-15, or top-5. Those are two really good defenses, two schemes that are good schemes. But we're just kind of one little thing off. Sometimes it's a bad throw, sometimes it's miss a landmark in the run game, sometimes route concepts get screwed up, and we don't run the right routes, so just the little things. It's correctable. It is little though. The difference between 315 or 400 yards and whatever we had today is really minute. We have to figure out how to fill in the gaps there, especially on a short week.
You and Jeffery Simmons seemed to have an ongoing thing going?
Yeah, he started that. He was calling me some mean names out there. He called me a "crybaby." I called him a crybaby back after he had the roughing call. Then we had a couple laughs after the game. All is well.
The pass you completed to Garrett (Wilson) down the right sideline, is that a chemistry thing there?
That's a '5' is really good. He was kind of freestyling out there and based on the angle of (L'Jarius) Sneed it felt like the only opportunity to complete it was to actually throw it back inside. I knew because it was zero (coverage) there was no safety issues pre-snap. But G (Garrett Wilson) he was gumpy out there. I just kind of threw it inside and hoped he would turn that way. He's so talented, and that was probably an easy play for him when for most people that's a highlight reel play.
You talked about the relax mantra, what is it about the way you think you are trying to intentionally communicate to nurture a calmness around the team?
It's not just on game days, it's every day. It's how do we stay loose and then be able to lock in when it is time to lock in. There's been sometimes, I think last year, where there were some negative vibes going at times, where it felt like "here we go again" or "we're not going to win this one." I just don't want us to ever get in that spot. I think there's ways of doing that, some of it is through humor, some of it is through stoicism, some of it is through just taking charge. You just put your pulse on the team, on the energy, and try to do the right thing as a leader.
After the touchdown catch, it looked like you pointed to someone on the sideline. I'm wondering if there was any significance to that.
Yeah, I pointed to Hack (Nathaniel Hackett). We were talking about that personnel group on Thursday. He said, "I like it, I don't know if I like it this week, but what would you want?" I said, "Maybe bubble chloe or something like that." He said, "That works." And then sure enough, right before, we had a timeout, or the two minute warning, there was something, it was two-minute warning. And I came over and we had two plays we were mulling over, and that was one of them. And I said, "Oh yeah let's do it!" It's fun when you get on the same page, and he calls it and it works out.
Did you have any words of advice for Jermaine (Johnson)? Obviously, it looks like he tore his Achilles.
I knew he was hurt and carted off, so I was worried about him. I saw actually on the jumbotron it said, "achilles." So, my heart kind of dropped a little bit. Good news is, he's a very young player that is going to have a very long career. There's a lot of great people out there to take care of him. I'm a bit bias with Dr. ElAttrache. We briefly talked, I just told him I love him and told him I was sorry. He is handling it a lot better than I did so far. It's going to be a big loss for us.
You mentioned the clock stuff. What was the issue behind that? How are you going to fix it?
Yeah, that was embarrassing. I got some excuses for sure, they're not very good. I'll just leave it at that. That was on me. I felt good week one, we didn't have any close to that, but this week we had a couple. Robert (Saleh) saved my ass a couple times. Yeah, it's frustrating.
