National Football League

Same old Jets? Not according to Ryan

Published Aug. 12, 2010 4:26 p.m. ET

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The juxtaposition is striking. This is an idyllic, old and rural small town with great facilities for Cortland State football, while also hosting possibly the NFL’s most confident team that perfectly mirrors its outgoing head coach, Rex Ryan. The daily big city boast here is “Super Bowl or Bust!”

The New York Jets have embraced it all. They have the California kid quarterback, they have cameras and boom mikes everywhere because they are being featured on HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” and they have the biggest holdout of the summer, cornerback Darrelle Revis. You realize this is a different training camp when hovering nearby is HBO’s miniature helicopter with camera attached.

This was supposed to be a story about egos run amok, but the Jets don’t strike me as a team doomed by this constant talk of Super Bowl. It’s been 41 years since Joe Namath upset the Colts, but Ryan has definitely transformed the locker room. This is a happy, confident team, and it’s impossible to find a player who doesn’t love Rex and also doesn’t laugh at his penchant for the F-bomb adjective.

“He’s a pretty special coach,” said Henry Ellard, the receivers coach. “He expects hard work and gets it while also understanding it’s okay to have a little fun. It’s a combination that works for him and for us. Plus, he talks every player’s language.”

“Rex and his staff work hard all offseason and he feels like he’s put together a championship team,” said safety Jim Leonard, a Ryan protégé. “He’s not going to sugarcoat anything. But to me, why can’t you talk about the Super Bowl? That’s the plan, and really that’s our only goal. That’s why 32 teams are practicing right now.”

Ryan will tell you that he’s always been like this, unafraid to say virtually anything, but suddenly the NFL world is listening because he’s finally a head coach.

“I really like Rex and I think it’s great that he’s talking Super Bowl,” said Saints coach Sean Payton, the reigning champion. “One of the biggest mistakes some assistants make when they finally become a head coach is that they re-invent themselves and try to be someone they aren’t. You know, assume the characteristics of all the coaches who influenced them. You can’t change who you really are. The players will spot a phony in a second. Rex hasn’t changed one single bit from the guy I’ve known all these years.”

Still, there are a lot of coaches and teams that aren’t quite as front and center as Ryan is. So, I asked him to explain himself.

“Muhammad Ali wasn’t like any other boxer, either,” Ryan said. “He would tell it like it was and say whatever he felt like saying and then go out and punch you in the mouth. We’ll take that approach. I don’t care what other (coaches) are saying about this. If some (coach) needs me to motivate their team, by something that I say, we’re going to beat them anyway.”

Ryan has ultra-confident defensive bloodlines, having learned from his father, Buddy, who was the defensive coordinator when the Jets won their only Super Bowl. Buddy, of course, won another one when his 46 defense was the backbone of the 1985 Chicago Bears. There’s also an apparent history lesson there, too.

“They had a couple defensive players hold out for more money in training camp and still won a Super Bowl,” the Jets’ Kris Jenkins said of the Bears.

Generally, today’s players aren’t big on such historical football details. So how did Jenkins know that safety Todd Bell and pass rusher Al Harris missed the entire 1985 season after being starters for Chicago the previous season? Heck, Bell was the “6” in the 46 defense.

“Rex told me,” Jenkins said. “I figured Rex knows everything.”

And the history lesson is simply another example of how the Revis holdout and all the Super Bowl talk continually intertwine. Rex’s latest solution was for Revis and his agents to come here and talk contract with management within earshot of all the players. No more secrets, no more lies, was Rex’s reasoning.

That’s the straight-forward, emotional Rex talking. But in the football business world it’s also naïve.

Revis was also a holdout as a first-round pick and finally signed when he beat the salary slot by collecting more bonus money than the player picked ahead of him in the draft. He has three years left on that six-year contract, and who knows if he’ll ever return this season, considering he wants his contract virtually tripled and he’s getting advice from relative Sean Gilbert, a former defensive tackle who once missed an entire season (1997) and then was actually rewarded. Of course, Gilbert busted out after breaking the bank in Carolina, totaling 15 sacks in five seasons.

The Jets have made enough offseason moves that maybe they could actually make it to the Super Bowl without Revis. They have pass rusher Jason Taylor, a former Defensive Player of the Year, and also former Chargers cornerback Antonio Cromartie. Right now Cromartie and first-round pick Kyle Wilson, possibly the best cover cornerback in the draft, are the starters.

Ryan acknowledged that he hated to part with running back Thomas Jones, but he loves LaDainian Tomlinson and Shonn Greene. In fact in last weekend’s Green-White scrimmage, L.T. went for a 70-yard touchdown on a pass from Mark Sanchez.

“It’s the first time the offense has ever beaten my defense,” Ryan said. “I never lose these things. We usually smoke the offense, and it’s not because the defense is always ahead of the offense at this time of the year.”

And that’s the great thing about the Jets this season. They definitely look to be more than Rex’s defense. Not only does L.T. look quicker and faster than he did in San Diego, but ex-Steelers Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes also has added another dimension to the passing game, one that already features Braylon Edwards, Jerricho Cotchery and tight end Dustin Keller, who caught a touchdown in all three of the team’s playoff games last season.

“There definitely is something to a great player like L.T. getting rejuvenated with a change of teams,” said Jenkins, who was an All-Pro when he helped take the Panthers to their lone Super Bowl. “The change helped me and it sure looks like he’s feeling pretty good here.”

“He made a couple phenomenal football plays in the scrimmage,” Ryan said of L.T. “He’s a premier player who now has a chip on his shoulder.”

“My job is to be a leader and take my game to the next level,” Sanchez said. “I definitely have some great weapons in order to reach my goals.”

Due to a four-game drug suspension, Holmes will miss the start of the season, but he’ll be around for the stretch run.

Next Monday the Jets open the preseason in their new stadium against New York’s other team, the Giants.

“Our new stadium is everything any player could ever ask for,” Leonard said. “The franchise has given us a first-class place and it’s only right that we return the favor to management by winning this season.”

Any hardcore Jets fan knows the saying, “Same old Jets.”

“My whole goal is whenever they say ‘Same old Jets,’ is that it means all we do is win and all we talk about is winning,” Ryan said. “All I can say is that my Jets expect to win.”

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