NFL

Mangold: Jets won’t resort to ‘pointing fingers’ like last year

The Jets saw their 2011 season dissolve because of a fractured locker room. They are vowing not to let that happen again this year.

“I think that we learned last year that pointing fingers and being disgruntled doesn’t help anybody,” center Nick Mangold said yesterday. “It’s not going to help anybody. I think we have a pretty good locker room, where we all understand that it comes down to execution. When we don’t execute, we don’t do good things.

“It’s not going to matter if we have Joe Namath back there, if we don’t execute, then nothing is going to work. We understand that and I think having that in our minds will keep the finger pointing and those types of things away from our locker room.”

Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie said a few things that sounded like he was criticizing the offense after Sunday’s 30-9 loss to the Dolphins.

“[Miami] played between the lines better than us,” Cromartie said. “Their defense came out and dominated our offense and slowed down our offense to the point I think, what were we, 1-for-5 (actually 1-for-4) in getting into the red zone. … We’ve got to put points on the board when we’re down in the red zone.”

“When there is a turnover when they get the ball, we’ve got to get a way to try to make them just kick field goals and not score points. That’s something that we’ve got to take pride in, you’ve got to look at it and try to clean up also.”Cromartie then voiced his support for quarterback Mark Sanchez and the offense. Still, the potential for a rift between the offense and defense exists if the offense continues to struggle.

* Jets coach Rex Ryan was mystified by the failure of his special teams units on Sunday. Usually a strength, the Jets special teamers allowed an onside kick, a blocked punt, a blocked field goal and 57-yard kickoff return that led to a touchdown.

“That’s one of the things that is really odd, because I know the pride we take in that unit,” Ryan said yesterday. “You make a mistake on special teams and it ends up costing you. You can’t turn a guy loose right in the middle of your protection and not expect it to get blocked. Obviously, that was a huge momentum thing in the game. It was a great call on their part.”

* Ryan on what he and Dolphins running back Reggie Bush said to each other when Bush went out of bounds near the Jets coach and exchanged words:

“The guy made a nice run,” Ryan said. “It was one of the two runs that he had that were really good runs. The kid made a nice play. I’m not sure. Those things happen. I don’t remember exactly what was said.”