National Football League

Jets' Ryan says he will tone down his act

Published Jan. 21, 2012 12:00 a.m. ET

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Jets coach Rex Ryan admitted that he made mistakes this season and said he even will consider toning down his bravado and brash talk in the future, but added that talk of disunity in the locker room was exaggerated.

Ryan said he was considering a different media approach after hearing running back LaDainian Tomlinson's claim that his coach's boasts sometimes provided motivation to the opposing team.

"I thought it would put pressure on me," Ryan said in an interview Friday with WFAN. "Clearly, when you have a team that went to back-to-back championship games, what else is there to go for? It's Super Bowl or bust. Well, we busted."

He added, "When I guaranteed we'd get it done this year, I thought the bull's-eye was going on my back. That's where I wanted to place it. What I didn't anticipate was, I put added pressure on our players when I wanted to put the pressure on myself. That's something I obviously have to learn from."

It was one of a few revelations Ryan made throughout the day, the New York Post reported.

He also told season-ticket holders on a conference call that he had a poor grasp of the offense last season. He committed to learning new offensive coordinator Tony Sparano's offense better than he knew his former assistant Brian Schottenheimer's.

"I do need to increase my awareness and everything else on the offensive side," Ryan said. "I'm committed to learning our offense. Quite honestly, the verbiage that we had last season, it was probably a little much. I could tell you that we were going to run a power. I could tell you the protections and things like that. I want to know even more about it."

Ryan and the Jets have been dealing with the fallout from their 8-8 season since it ended Jan. 1 with a loss to the Dolphins. The talk has centered around the dysfunction that existed in the locker room. This week, Tomlinson called it as bad a locker room as he had been in.

"There are some things I disagree with," Ryan said in the radio interview. "I think it was an isolated incident. I don't think it was pervasive throughout the locker room. It's not everybody in the locker room. We certainly had a couple of guys, and it had a huge negative impact on our football team, there's no question about that."

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