The noise around Rex Ryan returning as New York Jets head coach is getting louder. Well, louder in the sense that Ryan can’t stop talking about it.
He’s said it across various appearances on ESPN, he said it in an interview with the ESPN radio station in New York on Thursday, and he said it during his appearance on the “Pardon My Take” podcast on Friday morning. If you pass him on the street, he’ll tell you too.
“I’ve let everybody know I’d be interested even though I’ve got a great gig” at ESPN, Ryan said on “Pardon My Take.” “I have some unfinished business with that franchise … I just think I would get back in it if I could make a difference and I could make a difference with that team.”
He added: “If I took over it’d be turned (around) in about two minutes.”
Ryan also said that “I know if I get the opportunity to interview for it I’m going to get the job.”
In Ryan’s defense, perhaps he knows how much owner Woody Johnson hears what people are talking about on social media. So if Ryan talks enough, maybe Johnson will hear him.
Rex Ryan on @PardonMyTake, on the #Jets job:
(Would you like to save the #Jets?)
“I’d like to. I’ve let everybody know I’d be interested even though I’ve got a great gig (at ESPN) … I have some unfinished business with that franchise … I just think I would get back in it if I…
— Zack Rosenblatt (@ZackBlatt) November 22, 2024
A potential Ryan return is a fun idea to talk about weeks before the Jets actually start their search. He’s still the last Jets coach to make the playoffs, in 2010. That was also the last time they were respected as a team to reckon with around the NFL. But that was 14 years ago, and focusing on that ignores everything that happened after that 2010 playoff run, and really what led to that success in the first place.
Let’s start from the beginning: Ryan’s best results in New York came in his first two years, when he inherited the team that Eric Mangini built. They went 9-7 in 2008, Mangini’s last year, when they started hot (8-3) but faltered once an aging Brett Favre got injured. To Ryan’s credit, he did build the Jets defense into one of the league’s best, but the offense never really took off and even as he shuffled through offensive coordinators over the years, they never steered away from a “ground-and-pound” attack.
In the PMT interview, Ryan said the Jets current offense, put together by Aaron Rodgers and Nathaniel Hackett, and since taken over by Todd Downing, is “about 20 years behind its time. That’s the old West Coast type stuff. They talk like they’re geniuses and the great thing is I love playing against them because I can tell where every damn play is going. I haven’t coached for eight years and can tell you every play. That’s gotta be flushed out. You gotta get up with the times offensively.”
Well, there’s not really any evidence that Ryan knows how to run a modernized offense, nor is it clear what offensive coordinator would want to work with him.
Now, look at what happened after the Jets’ two successful playoff runs, in 2009 and ’10: They were a massive disappointment in 2011, going 8-8, when they were definitely hurt by the loss of legendary offensive line coach Bill Callahan (he was lured away by the offer to call plays for the Dallas Cowboys). It only got worse from there.
Offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer left after 2011 and was replaced by Tony Sparano, who was fired a year later and replaced by Marty Mornhinweg. From 2012 to ’14, the Jets went 18-30 and ranked 31st in offensive EPA, 18th in defensive EPA, 29th in offensive yardage, 32nd in passing yards, 31st in red zone success rate and 31st in scoring. Ryan had Geno Smith — who has since become a quality starting quarterback — and failed to develop him. In two seasons with Ryan as his head coach, Smith threw for 25 touchdowns and 34 interceptions. In 2013, Ryan, confoundingly, inserted Mark Sanchez into a preseason game in which Sanchez suffered a season-ending injury, thus forcing Smith into the starting lineup before he was ready. This quarterback part is notable since Ryan wouldn’t be inheriting a good quarterback situation. Rodgers likely isn’t returning — that becomes even less likely if Ryan is the coach. So Ryan would be the one tasked with shepherding a team led by, potentially, Tyrod Taylor and/or a rookie.
After Ryan was fired by the Jets in 2014, he became the Buffalo Bills head coach, didn’t succeed there (two seasons, no playoff appearances) and was fired. There’s also this: He hasn’t coached in the NFL, in any capacity, since the Bills fired him after the 2016 season. He interviewed to be the Cowboys defensive coordinator this offseason but Dallas picked Mike Zimmer instead.
Perhaps Ryan has learned a lot over the last decade as an ESPN analyst. One of his comments on PMT was somewhat encouraging, when he said the Jets offense needs to huddle quickly and use more pre-snap motion to get into “a great play.” But there’s not any past evidence that he’d run an offense like that.
Ryan’s Jets tenure didn’t end nearly as well as it started. His message wasn’t resonating as much in the locker room and he left a sour taste with some in terms of the way he exited. Per ESPN at the time, after getting fired Ryan addressed the team briefly, “revealing little emotion” and instead of giving a speech showed a Jets highlight film. He didn’t get along with then-general manager John Idzik (though it’s not as if Idzik has the best resume as GM either).
It appears the Jets intend to hire a general manager before their next head coach, and there likely aren’t many prospective general managers that would be excited about hiring a 61-year-old who hasn’t coached in the NFL since 2016. There’s also the nature of Ryan’s TV gig: He’s been highly critical of NFL coaches and players in his role — including Jets players and coaches — and that caught some steam recently when he directed vitriol at Cowboys star Micah Parsons, who pushed back. There aren’t many modern NFL players left who know Ryan for the kind of head coach he was — to them, he’s just a boisterous ESPN personality.
This is a much different NFL than the one he left behind, in terms of the physicality, the signature of his best defenses. Would his messaging resonate the same way it once did? Since Ryan last coached, the NFL has made it harder for coaches to conduct physical training camps. Two-a-days were killed off in 2011.
Ryan, though, doesn’t need to convince writers or fans right now. He just needs to convince one person: Woody Johnson. And he might be right: If Ryan gets in a room with Johnson for a job interview, he has the personality, ideas and proven track record of success with the Jets to win the owner over. It would be an easy sell, in Johnson’s mind, to the fan base — and at the end of the day, Johnson wants to sell tickets.
There are a couple examples over the years of head coaches returning to the job years after leaving. Art Shell coached the Raiders from 1990-94 and made the playoffs three times. He was hired again in 2006, went 2-14 and was promptly fired. Joe Gibbs coached Washington from 1981-92, won three Super Bowls, retired, then came out of retirement in 2004 to coach them again. In four seasons, Washington made the playoffs twice before Gibbs retired again.
Ryan wants his own second chance. It wouldn’t be a good idea.
(Photo: Jeff Zelevansky / Getty Images)
