Monday, January 17, 2011

1/17: The NFL Needs More Rex Ryan

There are some things I will never understand. I will never understand why some people put anchovies on pizza. I will never understand why some people spend hundreds of dollars on a suit. I will never understand why the Big East gets 8 teams ranked in the Top 25 despite not having much deep tournament success in recent years to stand on. I will never understand why a team squib kicks with a 3-point or less lead late. And I will never understand why some people don't like Rex Ryan.
NFL coaches have been taken over in the last decade by a series of faceless coaching droids that drain all the fun out of the game by treating the game as if it has to be treated like national security. Bill Belichick never cracks a smile and treats a press conference and other media appearances like he'd rather jam an ice pick into his own forehead than answer another question. His teams are great and his play-calling is unique, but his personality is hard to like. Not to mention he runs on platform that his team does things the right way, but he has been far from the straight and narrow road himself. So he's a boring coach who also happens to be a hypocrite. Unless you are a fan of the Patriots or a frontrunner he's incredibly hard to like in any way. Here's the typical comment he will give, I hope you are braced for this excitement:




Contrast this with Rex Ryan. He's also a defensive-minded coach in a media hub of the country. He takes an entirely different approach. He comes in and talks up his team. He sticks his neck out there every week with his comments. His team has every reason to believe that he is confident in them. His team loves him for it, and want more than anything to back him up. Rex is a player's coach in this aspect. Belichick would sooner cut you for a comment in a press conference than stand up for you. Rex's players surely believe he'd be next to them in the alley fighting for them if they needed. In fact, he'd seemingly fight for them just to prove he could:




The New York Jets need this kind of personality to break free of the Giants in the headlines (as well as in the national perception as the G-men are now a couple years removed from the play-offs). The Jets-Patriots rivalry needs this kind of personality to provide the perfect contract with Belichick. The fans of other teams need this kind of personality because it's fun to get worked up about meaningless comments in the media. The fans of the Jets need this kind of personality because it's the kind of over-the-top personality that makes a guy magnetic to fans. Most of all the NFL needs characters. There is too much Bill Belichick and not enough Rex Ryan, Bum Phillips, and Jerry Glanville.




Let's not forget where Rex got it from
and that's at a 2007 lesser college all-star game over a decade into retirement.

So do your thing Rex, we need it.



and now your moment of zen (epic fail edition)