The New York Jets are a franchise in disarray.
That’s a sentence you could have written at basically any point over the last four decades. Perhaps the only time you couldn’t was a brief stretch between 2009 and 2010 when the Jets went to back-to-back AFC Championship Games, falling just short of returning to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 1968 season.
Rex Ryan was the head coach of those Jets teams. While his time with the franchise didn’t end well, they haven’t come close to reaching those heights since. Meanwhile, Ryan, now an NFL analyst for ESPN, has spent the last few years attempting to call his shot for a return to the coaching ranks. He interviewed for the Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator job last offseason but didn’t get the gig.
Ryan took things up a notch in the last few days, openly saying that he wants to return as head coach of the Jets.
“When I look around I know nobody’s better than me,” he said. “So we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.”
Fellow ESPN NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky recently spoke with The New York Post’s Steve Serby and says that, if nothing, else, Ryan will bring the passion with him.
“I love Rex,” said Orlovsky. “I work with him every Monday, I have for the past three or four years. You could see how much he misses coaching. You could feel how much the game and kind of being in it matters to him still. If Rex feels that he could still do it at that high level and kind of where he is in his life, you’re not going to find a guy that is as loving of the game and loves this game more than Rex.”
Could he actually see Jets owner Woody Johnson bringing Ryan back into the fold 10 years after firing him?
“I could see it,” said Orlovsky. “Yeah for sure.”
Stranger things have happened around the NFL. Given the chaos that has surrounded New York in recent years (let alone decades), it seems like you might want to go with someone who has been actively working in the game as your next head coach. But, again, this is the Jets. Who knows what they’ll do next?
[NY Post]
