Seahawks 23, Jets 6
ROBERT SALEH: Obviously we made too many mistakes in that first quarter in all three phases to give ourselves a chance. Couldn't get anything going in the second half. It's disappointing.
Q. You allowed scores in the first three defensive series. What did they do that caught you off -guard?
ROBERT SALEH: Nothing. You know, it's the explosive run to start the game, lack of gap control. And then poor eye discipline within the pass game, so there's three explosive plays in the first two series that allowed them to generate the points that they did.
Q. Offense doesn't score for the second straight week. What do you see from the offense right now?
ROBERT SALEH: I thought our run game started out pretty good. Hit a wall. You know, all 11 have got to work together, and we are just not getting the precision that you need to be able to play with in this league. We generated an explosive -- we're not finishing drives. There's a lot of things that we can look at.
Q. What did you see from Mike?
ROBERT SALEH: Mike White?
Q. Yeah.
ROBERT SALEH: I thought he started good. I think in the second half the ball was getting away from him a little bit. Just not as accurate as he normally is, I thought he battled.
I think the second half the ball was getting away from him a little bit, just not as accurate as he normally is. But thought he battled. He battled. But obviously we weren't good enough.
Q. What's the emotions, from 7-4, to this?
ROBERT SALEH: It's disappointing. Because I know the five-game losing streak, and I know we battled in a bunch of games. This one is -- this one, we could have been a lot better, especially these last two games, just I feel like we're a better football team than this. Obviously starts with me, but yeah.
Q. How do you come out like that with so much to play for and then have two of your worst performances?
ROBERT SALEH: That's a good question. I've got to look at everything, all the way from top down starting with me. Obviously with this whole second half of the season, is there something that we could have done differently from a practice schedule standpoint, anything, just to kick start it.
We made some changes with this travel schedule, to come out a day earlier to get ourselves acclimated, but there's a lot of things that I can look at individually for myself.
Q. What do you say to the fans who at 7-4, think the long playoff down is finally over and here you are, eliminated today?
ROBERT SALEH: I promise you no one is hurting more than the people in the locker room, especially me. But at the same time, I know it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but there's still a lot of really cool things to look at from this season. But right now, it stings big time right now.
Q. How do you stay strong and motivated to beat a Miami team next week?
ROBERT SALEH: We are professional football players. There's a lot of pride in that locker room and any time you step on that field and put your tape out there, you'd better show up and show up well. I'm not worried about that group. We have a bunch of guys that love this game and they will show up.
Q. Ultimately Donovan's play, the way he has the last several games and it's hard to win, how hard is that and how can you fix that, or going into the off-season, how do you fix that for next year?
ROBERT SALEH: For sure, for sure. You've got to score points. Whether we had injuries, we can list a million excuses, but we didn't get better as the year went on in that regard. So there's a lot of things to look at. Obviously the things to look at start with me and I'm not kidding, but we're just saying it just to say it anyway.
But there's a lot of things to look at.
Q. With -- inaudible -- he only had a few plays on special teams, what was the thoughts on him --
ROBERT SALEH: We liked the package that we had last week. We thought if we can get a couple opportunities, we just never had -- they just never presented themselves.
Q. You got off to a good start running. What happened after that?
ROBERT SALEH: They did a good job. Called a couple of run pressures. Created some TFLs and put us in some negative situation -- plus-yardage situations, and then you get to that fourth quarter, we're down a couple scores and we try and play catch up.
Q. You said they didn't really do anything to surprise you, but how shocking was it to your defense --
ROBERT SALEH: It wasn't necessarily shocking. It was disappointing because they are things that we do in our sleep, just basic fundamental football.
Q. You've struggled against the run since the bye week, perhaps because you have smaller defensive tackles that get pushed around like the first play of the game. Do you guys need to get bigger at defensive tackle?
ROBERT SALEH: I don't know about that one. I think I try to go from an efficiency standpoint. They have a big run to start the game, what is it, a 60-yarder, and from there, they had 70 yards rest of the game for 30 carries or whatever it was.
So I don't look at it like, yeah, they moved us and they got some yardage. We just couldn't create any negative yardage in the run game. But I don't know if the run game killed us as much today as just those three busts that we had in the first half, or in that first quarter, the first run, basic zone scheme, tackle, 43-yard gain and explosives in the pass game just losing coverage -- poor with your eyes.
Q. What happened with Herbig?
ROBERT SALEH: Herbig has been dealing with a lot of stuff. I'm not going to get into details of his injuries, but he just couldn't go.
Q. Was it something in practice this week?
ROBERT SALEH: He's been fighting his tail off and just the straw that broke the camel's back for him. Hopefully we can get him back next week.
Q. You talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. What makes you believe that? Do you have the pieces in place?
ROBERT SALEH: I do, we have a tremendous young core, I do believe that. I look at the first half of our season and we're fully healthy going into the bye week, we're 6-3 and everything was looking up. You know, one thing leads to another and you lose a couple of really tight games and these last two games, there just hasn't been anywhere near playoff-calibre football for us.
You know, you lose to a Minnesota team in the last second, you lose to a Buffalo team in the last second, you lose to the Lions in the last second, and so I know we're close. I know it stings right now. It stings.
But I know we've made a lot of headway over the last 2 years and we'll continue to do so.
Q. This Seahawks defense has not been playing great, but today they were like the '85 Bears out there to use that reference. Why were they able to jump so many routes? They seemed to know a lot of your tendencies today.
ROBERT SALEH: No, that's a good question. I do think they played Kansas City really well last week. They have been getting better. But yeah, there was no reason why we shouldn't have been able to move the ball on them.
DraftScripts by ASAP Sports ...
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports