Brian Flores – December 19, 2021 (Postgame)
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Sunday, December 19, 2021
Postgame – N.Y. Jets
Head Coach Brian Flores
Q. I just wanted to ask you about Duke Johnson and the performance that he had. Just to be able to do that in front of his hometown on the field that he played college football on and the “Duke” chants. Just that kind of performance, how cool was that for you to see?
BRIAN FLORES: He played well. Definitely gave us a spark. Ran it well. Ran hard. Picked up first down. Picked up tough yardage and in a lot of instances where they knew we were running. I thought the o-line blocked it up well. George (Godsey) called a good game for us, and we were able to execute and thought he definitely gave us a spark.
Q. One housekeeping question first. Jevon Holland was activated off of COVID-19. Did it come down to him just not practicing all week to decide not to play him?
BRIAN FLORES: We activated him on a chance that we might be able to get him back off the COVID list. We weren’t able to do that, so that’s why he wasn’t active today.
Q. And what do you think of where this team stands now a six-game win streak, back at .500 with playoff hopes alive and three key games remaining.
BRIAN FLORES: We’re just trying to take it one day at a time. Get better. That’s the approach we’ve taken the entire season. These guys, they play hard for one another. They work hard. There’s a lot of – they support one another. It’s a great group to coach. We’re just going to take it one day at a time and try to improve, get better, but they compete and they fight. I was proud of the effort they gave today against – the Jets played us well. It’s the game we thought it was going to be, 60-minute battle against a division opponent. They were ready. They threw the kitchen sink at us. A lot of it was well-designed, and a lot of instances there you have to tip your cap. They executed and did a lot of good things. Thought they played well.
Q. Coach, congratulations on the win again. This is a six-game win streak for you all. Longest win streak for you during your tenure as coach. What is it going to take to keep this team focused on a Monday night match-up against the New Orleans Saints next week.
BRIAN FLORES: We’re going to enjoy this win tonight. It was a tough one today, but our approach is the same. Take it one day at a time. Let’s prepare the right way. Let’s go through our process, our weekly process. There’s a lot of changes that are happening right now. Going to Zoom like we’re doing here. We’re doing that in the best interest of our team, but also everyone. You guys as well. We’re going to try to take the one-day-at-a-time approach.
Q. Obviously, there’s been a commitment to the run game since you guys started winning and probably previously before that, but how beneficial is it to the offense and the RPO when that run game is effective and successful?
BRIAN FLORES: I think it just helps really every facet of the offensive football. That balance, that ability to churn out yards on the ground opens up the RPOs, opens up the play actions and it wears the opponent down. I thought our guys played hard. Obviously, the run game is something that we’ve placed an emphasis on, and we had some success with it today.
Q. And if I can get you to assess Tua’s performance. I know he had the pick-six and the early interception. Overall, how did you see him playing?
BRIAN FLORES: I think as a team, we were rusty in a lot of areas. Some penalties, some missed tackles, so not going to put it on Tua (Tagovailoa). Obviously he had some plays he wants back, but he battled back and took us right back down the field after the turnover and punched it in at the end and gave us the winning score, the winning points. We’ll make the corrections. It’s always good to make those mistakes and win the ball game as well. He will work hard to learn from them.
Q. Coach, during this win streak you guys hadn’t been down more than three points. Was there any angst being down 10-0 where you could almost say, “Hey, today is not our day.” How were you able to rally through the rough start?
BRIAN FLORES: I think it’s something that our players on the field for a 60-minute ball game, we just keep playing. We keep playing and try to string good plays together. Yeah, we got off to a bad start, tough start. We were down quick. No panic offensively, defensively, or in the kicking game. We know it’s a long game. If we play for 60 minutes and string plays together and do it in a complementary way that we would be able to battle back, I think offensively our guys moved the ball efficiently, effectively, brought us back into the game and then we started to play the complementary game, especially in the second half.
Q. Brian, 17 points allowed in the first half, and then you came back in the second half and did a good job stopping their offense. I believe you had five sacks in that second half. What changed from one-half to the other, and was in any of the first half performance attributable to rust from the bye?
BRIAN FLORES: Yeah, look, give them a lot of credit. I thought they had a very good game plan. I thought there were those — I don’t know what you call them – exotic-type plays, throwbacks, first passes, and we missed some tackles and they made some plays. So give them a lot of credit. We definitely needed to play better. I think the guys kind of turned it on in the second half. Especially from a pass rush standpoint. That really started by our ability to get some stops on early downs in the second half, which we weren’t getting in the first half. I think our guys made the adjustments.
Credit Josh (Boyer), our defensive staff for making those adjustments at halftime. We did a couple of things differently. I thought from a pass rush standpoint we did some good things, but we missed a number of sacks as well.
Q. In the sense you were talking on Friday about how the team have to compartmentalize. Do you think this game was kind of a microcosm of the entire week and guys being on the Covid list? You have to make changes maybe kind of in this game where you have ups and downs, do you think this game was kind of emblematic of the entire week?
BRIAN FLORES: No, not really. Look, we expected a tough physical game against a division opponent. We expected their best shot. You’ve got to give them credit. They made a lot of plays. They play hard for Coach Saleh. They really do. That team competes. I think the quarterback made a lot of plays. They’ve got guys out. We’ve got guys out. They competed. We expected that, so I think we got to give them credit.
Q. How hard are those kind of exotic or trick plays you were talking about earlier? How hard is it to game plan or prepare for those?
BRIAN FLORES: If you have never seen them, you really can’t prepare for them. That really boils down to reading the keys, being in your right spot. If you are a pass player or pass rusher or run defender or you are an edge player, if you are a contain player, which means if the ball runs away from you, you’ve got to stay back and kind of stay home, but it’s hard to do that when you are trying to play hard, play aggressively and get everybody get to the ball. That was a little bit of what happened there. That, plus some missed tackles, and again, you got to give them credit. They did a nice job from that standpoint. Our guys battled back and it’s good to get a win.
