FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — If you think the New York Jets are a little too loud and a little too cocky heading into the AFC championship game today, you might be right.
But how could they not be? Just look at the man the players look to for guidance. There may be no bigger, brasher or bombastic personality in the NFL right now than Rex Ryan, the Jets’ rookie head coach.
And his players love it.
“I think this is a magical place, and I definitely believe that is a special head coach,” said linebacker Bart Scott, one of the players to follow Ryan to the Jets from Baltimore. “There are not too many head coaches, if there are any others, like him.”
Consider that since becoming head coach of the Jets just over a year ago, Ryan has broken about every unwritten rule of NFL coaching decorum.
He has traded barbs, publicly, with an opposing player (Miami linebacker Channing Crowder) and said he didn’t want to kiss AFC East rival coach Bill Belichick’s Super Bowl rings. He cried in the locker room after a loss and joked about it during a news conference the following day.
He prematurely lamented that his team was out of the playoff hunt after a loss to Atlanta. Then, after the Jets clinched a wild-card berth in the final week of the regular season, he declared his team the favorite to reach the Super Bowl. His news conferences are equal parts newsy football talk and witty one-liners.
Jets fans have fallen hard for Ryan and appreciate his candor. The Jets’ rivals — and their fans — probably wish he would just shut up already.
“I think you better believe in yourself, you better believe in your football team, that’s all it is,” Ryan said. “There’s never a disrespectful thing. I don’t try to say anything disrespectful to the opponent that we’re playing. It’s all about our football team and the belief that we have.”
The Jets introduced Ryan as their new coach on Jan. 22, 2009. Eric Mangini was fired after three seasons (including two with winning rec-ords). Just over a year later, the Jets seem to have Ryan’s personality.
“He’s passionate about this team and his players, and we feed into that,” cornerback Lito Sheppard said. “It’s a tough-guy mentality, one that he expects his defense to carry on and portray on the field.”
Practices leading up to the AFC championship game against the Colts were loose. The Jets cracked jokes in the locker room. No one played the “underdog” card, despite having a road game against the top-seeded Colts, who are favored by more than a touchdown. It’s a tribute to the tone Ryan established, Scott said.
“He understands this is a business, but you can go about your business and have fun and enjoy it as well,” Scott said. “It’s a game, you know. You get that extra oomph when you have enthusiasm and passion and you’re enjoying yourself. When you worry about it and you’re tight and things like that, you go out and you’re robotic.”
Even rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez is adopting Ryan’s quirks. Sanchez, who last spring posed for photos in GQ magazine, hasn’t shaved his face in nearly a month. Ryan hasn’t had a haircut in just as long. It’s all part of the bond Sanchez has forged with Ryan as both go through their rookie seasons together.
“After some of the tougher games, I would walk into his office and was down in the dumps,” Sanchez said. “He said, ‘Man, this is what you signed up for. It’s all right. It’s going to get better.’ . . . He’s just been honest and up front, and it’s helped me.”
The Broncos, of course, had their own 2009 rookie head coach in Josh McDaniels, who, for all his Belichick- ian roots, at times this season showed some Ryan-like chutzpah, with fist-pumping and expletive-dropping exuberance. On the other side of the spectrum is Jim Caldwell, the Colts’ rookie head coach, who displays little emotion and says even less to the media.
“We’re going to be ourselves. So are the Colts,” Ryan said. “Jim Caldwell is an outstanding coach. I have a ton of respect for him. It’s just that we do things differently. If he would be out, maybe, more open or something like that, that might be a distraction to his team. If we had to close ranks and all that kind of stuff, we’d probably be distracted that way. It’s not who we are.”
Lindsay H. Jones: 303-954-1262 or ljones@denverpost.com
Historic meeting of headsets
Today’s AFC championship game marks the first time in NFL history that both teams in a title game have been led by a rookie head coach. And the Colts’ Jim Caldwell or the Jets’ Rex Ryan will have the opportunity to become only the third rookie head coach to win a Super Bowl.
Rex Ryan
Age: 47
Previous job: Spent 10 years as an assistant coach at Baltimore, including four years as defensive coordinator.
Rookie season: Jets finished the regular season 9-7, second place in the AFC East. A wild-card playoff team.
FYI: Rex is the son of longtime NFL head coach and assistant coach Buddy Ryan. Rex’s offensive coordinator, Brian Schottenheimer, is the son of Marty Schottenheimer, another longtime NFL coach. Rex had a game ball made and sent to Marty after the Jets’ stunning second-round playoff victory in San Diego last weekend.
Jim Caldwell
Age: 55
Previous job: Quarterbacks coach and assistant head coach for the Colts. Was appointed Tony Dungy’s successor before the 2008 season, when Dungy announced he would retire at the end of the year.
Rookie season: Colts raced to a 14-0 start and clinched the top seed in the AFC playoffs by mid-December.
FYI: Caldwell spent much of his coaching career in the college ranks, with seven stops, including at Colorado (1982-84). He was head coach at Wake Forest from 1993-2000.
Lindsay H. Jones, The Denver Post
