The New York Jets are in the market for a new head coach, again, and the best man for the job is one who's already had it. According to that man himself.
Rex Ryan should be the next Jets coach, Ryan himself argued on ESPN radio in New York. His pitch for the job is that, in hiring him, the Jets can keep the current roster intact because he'll simply get the fellas to play hard. After firing head coach Robert Saleh in October, the club fired GM Joe Douglas last week.
“I look at it this way, blow it up? We’re going to blow the opponents up,” Ryan said. “There’s way too much talent on this team to play the way we’ve been playing. How hard can you get a guy to play? That’s the thing. Nobody has seen a team that is going to play as hard as this team’s going to play in the future, trust me. If I’m the guy, trust me.
“That’s what is going to separate me from all these other guys you’re going to bring in. Your Grudens or whoever. Give me a break,” he continued. “They ain’t New York Jets. I’m all about the Jets. And the great thing is, yeah, you get a second chance at it and that doesn’t happen very often. Well, when it does it’s usually special. We’ll find out if I get that chance or not. If not, I hope they have one hell of a guy in place cause I still want to be a fan of the Jets. I still want to be, but when I look around I know nobody is better than me.”
Rex Ryan is on a mission to return to the Jets 👀 pic.twitter.com/0yWapH35BM
— New York Post Sports (@nypostsports) November 22, 2024
Since the club's 1960 founding, only one man coached the Jets for more than one season and left with a winning record: Bill Parcells, who went 29-19 with one AFC Championship appearance from 1997-99.
With a .475 winning percentage and four playoff victories in his six seasons, Ryan is actually one of the most successful coaches in Jets history. He took Gang Green from the Wild Card round to the AFC Championship in 2009 and '10, but the club was .500 or below in each of his final four seasons. Ryan then went 15-16 in two seasons with the Buffalo Bills, and has not coached since. He currently sits on ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown desk.
If the prospect of hiring Ryan sounds crazy or so-crazy-it-just-might-work, here's another crazy idea: with six games still to play, what's to stop Jets owner Woody Johnson from bringing Ryan in right now to test his theory that only Rex Ryan can get this group of players to play hard? If it works, the Jets have found their next head coach. If it doesn't, the worst thing that happens is the Jets improve their draft position for the next GM and head coach to squander, because that's what this team does best.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.