We are blessed here to have a coach like Rex Ryan. He is talented and smart, sure, but mostly: He’s fun. He’s brash, he’s opinionated, he drinks beer in fat-guy coach’s shorts. With Grandpa Grumpy over there on the other side of Giants Stadium, a freewheeling shit-kicker like Ryan is all we could hope for. Now that the Jets have lost three games in a row though, it was inevitable: People now want him to shut up.
Apparently Rex Ryan’s big, boastful, scary words are hurting his team’s confidence and destroying the fragile psyche of his Fabergé-egg quarterback. So says Gary Myers of the Daily News.
Rex Ryan’s mouth keeps running, a family tradition, but here’s his real dilemma: He has a rookie quarterback who doesn’t appear confident or capable enough right now to back up his coach’s words.
…Ryan can’t help being Ryan, and that means lots of bravado whether he has a rookie QB or a Hall of Famer. “I’ve said it from day one: If I don’t believe in the team, who is going to?” Ryan said. “To come out 3-0, a lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and all that stuff, and they’re breaking their backs getting off the bandwagon right now and I understand that.”
We’re not sure we understand how “If I don’t believe in the team, who is going to?” could possibly be construed as “bravado,” but no matter: Win or lose, Rex Ryan is the most entertaining thing about the Jets, and definitely the most entertaining coach in town. A large part of his gimmick as a coach, it seems, is keeping the spotlight on himself so that his players can focus on the game itself. He makes himself larger-than-life and headline-worthy, and they don’t have to. The Jets are struggling right now, but not egregiously so, and a 3-3 record is about what anyone would have expected going into this year. (It’s actually a little better than we had thought.) Rex Ryan knows what he’s doing. Let the man talk his glorious, glorious talk.