New York Jets C Nick Mangold - Ingles

January 17, 2011

On whether it helps having played at Pittsburgh earlier this year…

“I think there’s a little help to it, but I think it’s a whole new scene with the playoffs. I think you saw that with last week’s game going up to New England, so I think it’s good that we’ve been there, we can understand a little bit, but I don’t think it’s going to mean as much as what we do this week and how we prepare and how we play.”

On the advantage of being familiar with how Pittsburgh plays…

“It’s as much of an advantage to us as it is to them. They saw us just as well, so it’s a clean slate going into it. It’s a big game and I’m excited to see what our guys can do.”

On how important it is to the Jets to go a step farther than last year…

“It’s huge. We got here last year, and it’s fantastic and it was a great accomplishment, but it’s not what we set out to do. We set out to go further and that’s what we’re expecting.”

On whether it would be a disappointment to get this far and not make the Super Bowl…

“I’m not even going to get into the idea that we’re not going to win. I think if you start off with that kind of attitude, you’re bound to lose, so it hasn’t crossed my mind.”

On how the Jets can re-create the same type of emotion against Pittsburgh that they had last week at New England…

“I think with the AFC Championship, if you can’t get up for that, you might as well not even be in the building. It’s a great challenge for us. It’s a team that’s playing really well, and it’s going to take all of us for 60 minutes to be able to get the job done.”

On how much it helps having played in the AFC Championship Game last year…

“I think it’ll help a little bit. I think understanding how far we got last year and how close we were, we don’t want to be close again and miss out. I think guys understand that and feel that this is our opportunity. We’ve made good strides from last year and I’m looking forward to getting out there and playing the game.”

On the Jets’ confidence being perceived as arrogance by some observers…

“I don’t think so. I think we trust in what we do. We understand that you’ve got to have confidence in the way you go about things and the way we prepare during practices and the way we play games. If you don’t have that confidence, you’re going to be wishy-washy and it’s not going to go so well for you. So I think it’s more of a confidence, but you can see it being construed as arrogance, but to me it’s more just trust from each guy that they know that the other guy is going to be pretty confident.”