New York Jets WR Santonio Holmes, 4.12 On building a relationship with Mark Sanchez… First off, I would like to say, I want to be able to help him grow and be able to trust me and know that he has a guy on the field that is capable of making any play that he is willing to throw. I want him to feel very comfortable with having me in the system, working with him, learning, and hoping that he understands that I'm willing to work as hard as he needs me to. On what he can teach Sanchez after playing with Ben Roethlisberger… To just be yourself and trust your players. If at any point you want to listen to the receivers, don't feel like you're bigger than your receivers because you're a quarterback. Hopefully, you're willing to learn from your receivers and trust in those guys that they have your back. On if he’s asked himself why he hasn’t been able to stay out of trouble… I never ask myself any questions. I'm just accountable for my actions. Right now, I'm accountable for what happened and I'm ready to move forward to start a new career here with the Jets. On his reaction to the trade… I was very shocked. I got the call about 9:00 last night. I was out walking my puppy and got a phone call from my GM saying I would be traded to the Jets. I was very shocked at first, but I knew it definitely opened up a lot more doors and (would be) a better opportunity for me to start over. On what kind of trust he needs to build in the locker room… I definitely have to be accountable for my actions now. (I) definitely (have to) get a hold of all of the players, spend some time with these guys and show them what type of work ethic that I have. (I) always (have to be) on time to all the meetings, front and center, establishing a great relationship with the players on and off the field so those guys can understand who I am and where I came from. On if he needs to dig himself out of a hole to earn his teammates trust… I don't think I need to dig myself out of any hole. These guys have opened their arms to me right now and all I have to do is walk into them. (I need to) show them that I can trust them to put their arms around me and I'm going to follow their lead. On his time in Pittsburgh… I'm definitely going to leave with great memories. My time spent in Pittsburgh was very well deserved. I had a tremendous time spending four years getting to know the fans, making myself available to everyone, even the fans and all the media at all times when I was in Pittsburgh, the relationships that I did establish with all the players and everyone up in the front office. Those guys still trust and believe in me. It's just unfortunate that we had to part ways, but it definitely worked out for the better for the both of us. On if he plans to continue using Twitter… I think Twitter is definitely a fun way to stay interactive with your fans. Reading all of the things that a lot of the guys have said negatively about me, I've never responded to them. I'm always upbeat and excited to be on Twitter every day and I respond to a lot of my fans. I know the Jets organization here has all of the players connected with Twitter. I'm pretty sure everyone follows and has a great time with it. I never feed into all the negativity. On his reaction to the NFL suspending him for four games… Just definitely being accountable. I know I'm being repetitive by saying it, but being accountable for my actions. I'm willing to accept what happened and move forward. We've put that in the past. They've accepted it and there's nothing else to talk about around here, but how am I going to cope with being here in New Jersey? Am I willing to work hard and learn this system and move forward? On where he’ll fit in on this team… I definitely have a lot of work from the start to learn the system. I definitely want to come in and be one of the leaders on the field and off the field. My words won't be spoken very much around here, but my actions will definitely show my gratitude towards this team. On if he can be the missing ingredient to help the Jets win a championship… I know for a fact that's why they brought me here. The opportunity presented itself for the Jets to acquire me and I'm definitely here for a reason. My goal is, wherever I'm playing at, each season that I'm playing, is to try to win a championship. With the opportunity that's been presented to me, I'm willing to take it and step up to the (plate) and go forward. On how he got to the point in his career where he’s being traded for a fifth round draft pick… I can't predict the future, so I didn't know what was going to happen with me up until this point and even as far as winning the Super Bowl MVP. Everything that happened, has happened for a reason. (I’m) definitely being accountable for what happened. Also, getting traded at the age of 26, that's not a bad thing. There have been plenty of guys before me who have been traded that started their career over with another team and have been very successful, such as Cris Carter. It's definitely not a bad thing to be traded at a young age. It's to give you an opportunity and a fresh start and to sit back and understand all of the mistakes that you've made and you're willing to accept them and move forward. On his substance abuse problems… Given a second opportunity, I understood where my position lies. To go back down the same road and make the same mistakes won't be accepted around here. On if the Steelers sent him a message by trading him… I honestly can't pinpoint what message I got from it. All I know is I'm given a second opportunity and I'm willing to make the best of this opportunity with my new team, the Jets. On if he felt he turned a corner after winning the Super Bowl MVP and what has changed since… He (Roger Goodell) definitely was excited when we talked. I felt his trust in me. I felt like I let him down at some point, but at the same time, we're young, we make mistakes. We all do. We live from them and learn and we move forward. It's kind of hard to pinpoint where those mistakes have occurred and why to the fans, but just being young. On tweet where he allegedly suggested that a fan commit suicide… If I had any recognition of that, I would have been the guy that had been responding to all of the verbal abuse from everybody on my Twitter page. To only respond to one person in such a way, it wasn't me. However it came out amongst the fans, I never tried to defend myself on that topic amongst anyone on Twitter or amongst anyone that tried to ask me for interviews. I would definitely be accountable for my actions if I did say it. On how frustrating it is to go to a new team, spend the whole summer learning the offense and then have to sit out four games… I don't think it's frustrating. It's more me being nervous because I didn't think I'd be going through this at this time. It's more just nervous of the fact that I'm here having to learn a new system. It's going to be totally awkward, but being a competitor, being a professional athlete it’s something that we definitely have to be aware of and ready to take the challenge. On if he’ll be able to get up to speed quickly… Once I get a feel for how the coaches are, how the players play, I'm pretty sure I can (catch up) pretty quickly. On Rex Ryan saying he feels like Holmes lost him a Super Bowl ring and if he’s talked to Ryan… We actually joked on the phone about that last night when he gave me a call. My conversation was pretty smooth. He's understanding of where I'm coming from. He's not critical of the mistakes that I've made. He's willing to accept how hard I work on the field, what I'm capable of doing and he's willing to give me that opportunity to help this team win a championship. On if he feels like he wasn’t always accountable for his actions in the past… Not at all. Everything that I've been through in my life, I've put myself in those situations. I can never blame anyone else for what I've been through. I'm always going to be an accountable person for what I go through. On if he hasn’t learned enough from his mistakes in the past… Sometimes you can be critical of your mistakes. I don't think I've made these mistakes on my own. I'm not blaming anyone for what I've been through, but at the same time, being in certain situations, you have to be accountable for what goes on around you. Sometimes you just have no control over some things that do happen.
New York Jets General Manager Mike Tannenbaum, 4.12 On the character of the team… I'd like to think that the foundation of our team has a lot of high-character players from Tony Richardson, Bart Scott, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Darrelle Revis. Even since Coach Ryan has come here, you can look at Bart Scott, LaDainian Tomlinson, Jim Leonhard. These are all high-quality guys, high-quality players and people. In Santonio's (Holmes) situation, obviously there have been some bumps in the road in the past and hopefully he's learned from that. We're going into this transaction understanding that we're going to have to work together to give him the best chance to be successful on and off the field. We understand that there are risks, significant risks, but at the end of the day we felt the price was reasonable and the risk was reasonable. We understand that there's obviously been some significant issues in the past, and we're going to move forward together. On the role Santonio Holmes’ possible suspension played when making the trade for him... Well, we understood that was part of it. We felt like even among with that it was worth it given Santonio's production in the past and increasing the production in our passing game was one of our goals for 2010. We think with Braylon Edwards, Brad Smith, Jerricho Cotchery, Dustin Keller, another year with Mark (Sanchez), and adding Santonio for 12 games in the regular season, it was worth the price of the fifth-round pick. Obviously, a guy with his production at 26 years old, he would not have been available if these indiscretions didn't happen and obviously, the suspension. With that said, we just felt like for what we had to give up, the risk and the price was reasonable for us. On when the possibility of trading for Holmes began… I think the first conversation was late Saturday night into early Sunday morning. Things moved pretty quickly from there. Then after the initial call, we discussed it as a staff (and) did some research. Then obviously we were able to come up with something that hopefully works well for us and Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is one of those franchises that you look at and say, ‘Wow. They're successful.’ They've been successful for a long time, so we hope this is something that works out well on both ends. On how the team could have done a thorough background search on Holmes in such a short time… We have pretty good resources here. We spoke to some people. Even with that said, moving forward, we understand there is risk in this transaction. We're not going into this with our eyes closed. We understand what we're dealing with here. There's been more than one transgression and one of them resulting in a four-game suspension. We did talk to a number of people and felt that for what the price was, the risk was reasonable and the price was reasonable. Again, we understand going into this based on what's happened that there is some risk involved. With that said, we're also confident in three people, (Team Psychologist) Sarah Hickman, (Director, Player Development) David Szott, and (Vice President, Security) Steve Yarnell. Those three people cobbled together form a tremendous support staff, along with Coach (Rex) Ryan and Coach (Henry) Ellard. Those people will be with Santonio on a day-to-day basis. We’re looking forward to working with Santonio and give him a chance to be successful not only in this year, but in the future. On the thrill of the trade… I just go back to what is our charge? Our charge is to give the best resources possible to our coaching staff to try to be successful each and every year. We have a lot of great people that I work with up here every day, (Assistant General Manager) Scott Cohen, (Senior Personnel Executive) Terry Bradway, and Assistant Director, Player Personnel) JoJo Wooden, and (Vice President, College Scouting) Joey Clinkscales to name a few. It is exciting for us. We're excited to have Santonio. We think he's a dynamic play-maker. That's our charge. That's what we get paid to do. We try to, within reason, look at ways to improve the team every day. Rex (Ryan) challenged the staff, and we're taking the same challenge upstairs. We won nine games last year. We want to do better and we're trying diligently to try to improve this team. That's what we're here for and we're going to keep pursuing the ultimate goal of trying to win a Super Bowl. On where his willingness to trade comes from… Well, I think at the end of the day, you measure twice and you cut once. Woody Johnson, Rex Ryan and I had some pretty robust debate last night. We had some robust discussion. At the end, the three of us unanimously felt good about this decision. It's really my job to execute what Rex, Woody and I want to do. In this business, the only part you can control is the preparation. I felt really good about our preparation. We knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into. We felt that here's an opportunity to get a 26-year-old receiver who is a dynamic play-maker that has obviously had some indiscretions. It was something that the pros outweighed the cons. Again, there were some negatives, but at the end of the day, we felt good enough to pull the trigger. On what kind of pressure this puts on Rex Ryan with all the different personalities in the locker room… It's interesting. Starting with Santonio (Holmes), Rex will tell you that he cost him the Super Bowl ring. He was the one guy that they specifically couldn't stop in Baltimore. In the games they lost to Pittsburgh, Holmes was the guy that was scoring the touchdowns in really close, hard-fought games between Pittsburgh and Baltimore. When his name came up, Rex didn't blink twice. He felt this was the guy that really cost him another ring. I think when you look at Rex's ability to relate to people and connect with players, he's really outstanding at that. He's done that his whole life, his whole career. I think just as a head coach, it puts him on a bigger stage. He has a very unique ability to connect to a lot of different types of people. I feel good about the (Antonio) Cromartie trade. I feel good about this trade, though obviously Santonio hasn't even been here for a day. Just being around Cromartie now for a couple of weeks, he's fit right in. He's worked hard, getting feedback from Sal Alosi, our strength coach. He's done everything we've asked. Braylon's (Edwards) been a great Jet so far over the six plus months he's been here. I think it's a tribute to our organization, and specifically Rex. On being able to make trades with this un-capped season… I think for us, we knew what the restrictions were going back to February and planning our off season at the Combine and looking at what our needs were. We looked more closely at the restricted market, the players that were cut, and obviously the trade market, starting off with the (Antonio) Cromartie trade. We just knew that until we lost somebody as a UFA, not to waste any time there. I looked at it as an opportunity of what we could do, not what we couldn't do. I think my job is to bring passionate energy every day to solving problems up here. I always try to look at things with the glass half full, not half empty, and let's make the most of what we can do. We shouldn't around here to lament. That's wasting energy. Saying, ‘Gee, we could get that player, but we can't.’ What problems can we solve giving the resources that we have? If we don't embrace that challenge, we're not in the right line of work. On if he is concerned that Mark Sanchez will have added pressure to throw to both Holmes and Braylon Edwards and the impact of both players being in the final year of their contracts… One of our goals was to make our passing game more consistent in 2010. We think this acquisition allows us to have greater consistency because over the course of the season, I think our running game was pretty formidable starting from Houston and going all the way through. I thought our passing game was too spotty for parts of the season. We still are going have the same mentality of a ground-and-pound and being able to run the ball to win. Now we should be able to attack teams in more than one way. Relative to their contract status, we don't really know what the rules are going to be yet from a collective bargaining standpoint into the future. Ari Nissim has done a great job of running a lot of models in terms of how many years to free agency, no cap, cap, whatever comes out at the collective league bargaining level. We're trying to prepare ourselves the best we can. We have players that are committed to winning. If you have any doubt about that, I would tell you to look at Braylon Edward's ability to block last year because he did a great job for us blocking. He bought in 100% from what we asked him to do. We ran a lot of successful running plays right behind him.
On if he worries that the chemistry that worked last year won’t be as effective this year… I think each year every team's identity takes its own. We do a lot of things. I look at the offseason participation and we have almost everybody here. Each team forms its own personality, and the Brodney Pool’s, the LaDainian Tomlinson’s, and the Ben Hartsock’s are going to help form this year's personality and dynamics. Going off to Cortland University, going back to the original decision where Rex (Ryan) said to Woody Johnson and myself, “I have one request. I want to go away for camp. I want to start training camp with 40 players taking 40 cars, and I want to come back with 40 players taking 10 cars. And if we do that, training camp will be successful.” Rex's vision of team-building is paramount to what he believes in to being successful. The 2010 Jets will have obviously some correlation to last year, but in this day and age, each year the team has its own personality. Us going away for a couple of weeks to Cortland University is really for that reason. On if he feels the high character guys in the locker room will help incorporate Antonio Cromartie and Holmes… No question. I think there is a great foundation here in terms of high-football character, and passion for winning and playing hard. And that's what we believe in. Again, with the off-the-field issues, we have a really good support staff to help people get better and learn from their bumps in the road. With that said, we understand there is risk here. We're not trying to turn a blind eye to it. What we're saying is collaboratively in the form of a new partnership, we're excited to have Santonio, and move forward with him, understanding that there is risk, but we think the risk is reasonable. On whether Coach Ryan’s presence allows more flexibility in acquiring players with various backgrounds compared to former Head Coach Eric Mangini… In fairness to Eric, we brought a guy like Kris Jenkins in who didn't have the best reputation when we got him. I thought Eric was open-minded in his own right as well. As far as Rex, I think in this case he was so excited because this guy, in his words, cost him a ring. I do think Rex loves working with different types of people. He believes in giving people second chances and he's energized by those challenges. With that said, this is an organizational decision, and we'll work together. Obviously, Rex has such a big say in things. Rex is energized by this, energized by challenges. He’s dynamic in his ability to relate to all different types of people. So we're moving forward together and Santonio is one of ours and now it's up to us to make it work. On if Holmes will receive a contract extension if he has a successful season… Again, I know this goal is often not realistic, but my expectation anytime we get a player here that's happy here and we're happy with them, that we try to keep them all. That's obviously hard to do and unrealistic. Unfortunately, every year you have to make tough choices. Our hope and expectation is he'll be here for a long time to come. He is under contract for this year. We'll go from there. On if Leon Washington will sign his tender… I don't know that. That would be a great question for him and his agent. On if he asked Nick Mangold about Holmes because they were college teammates… Yes, we definitely do that from time to time. I have had some conversations with Nick about players, so I don't want to get into the specifics. That wouldn't be fair to the players involved. We do that a lot for players that have been here, even in the draft. I ask these guys about their college teammates. I go back to last year. We had Chauncey Washington, and there was a report about whether or not he was a capable pass blocker. I went to Mark Sanchez and said, ‘Hey, Mark, let's get right to it. Do you feel comfortable having this guy pass protect for you?’ Obviously Chauncey is a Jet. So we absolutely do that. I look at our guys as tremendous resources of information.
I have never seen the word accountable used so much in my life. Nothing out of the ordinary there otherwise. Seems like he's happy to be here though.
at least santonio seems more real to me then big ben...rapistburger got away from this big time. I hope he's suspended for a few games too.
I'm guessing the word has lost all meaning to Holmes, the lawyer who taught it to him, every reporter in the press room that day and Tannenbaum.
lol hey, I looked long and hard for a good cheerleader pic, this was the best I could find for a sig. Guess I'm not the only one. :sad: I can see I like boobies more than you tho. I just couldn't cut them out. Could someone please take some good cheerleader pics at the games this year?
Hm. I think Braylon came across a lot better in his introductory PC than Santonio does here. Hope he keeps it on the straight and narrow.
