Coming off a bye week and the Jets special teams coach Mike Westhoff is still frustrated about how special teams performed against the Miami Dolphins two weeks ago. He had no qualms expressing his feelings about the situation. Read more after the jump.
That performance still resonates with the coordinator who is considered among the best special teams coaches in league history.
“You can never sugarcoat them,” he said of bad games. “You roll up your sleeves and go back to work and try to solve the problem.
“That’s as frustrated as I’ve ever been in my entire career. A game like that, whoa, that was tough.”
The Dolphins, a former employer of Westhoff, blocked a punt for a touchdown, blocked a field goal, recovered an onside kick, and made some good returns. Had the Jets been better on special teams they might still have lost considering how inept the offense was, but the kick squads never gave them a chance.
So Westhoff went to his office in the evening after that loss, watched game tape, and got right to work.
“That stuff is tough to deal with,” he said. “But you make a mistake, you realize what it was, face up to it, and make sure you do it right the next time.”
Perhaps the most difficult part is the constantly changing cast Westhoff works with. He’ll go up against one of his former mainstays in New York, kick returner Leon Washington, in Sunday’s game at Seattle.
Washington was traded to the Seahawks in 2010 after a superb four seasons with the Jets.
“There’s a level of flexibility I must have,” Westhoff said. “We all face it, but doing what I do I have to face it more than anyone. That’s the tough part of our business and it has become more frequent.”
As for having so long to stew in the mess his units created against Miami, Westhoff saw it as a mixed bag.
“In some ways, yes, you want to flesh it out and get back and get going,” he said. “But I think some of the guys were happy they didn’t have to see me for a week.”
