Haunted by a couple of agonizing defeats, Rex Ryan’s coaching career boasts three AFC Championship losses, the cruelest pair with the New York Jets. He watched in agony as Peyton Manning snatched victory from them at halftime, and a year later, one final stop denied Mark Sanchez (yes, the best player on the field in the second half of that game) a game-winning drive against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
So, Ryan may know something about being on the precipice of the Super Bowl, only to see his hopes dashed. One of the lasting images that Jets fans have of their beloved former head coach is Ryan slamming down his headset in agony after Ben Roethlisberger converted a third-and-7 to a relatively unknown Antonio Brown with the season on the line.
For all his bravado, Ryan couldn’t escape the NFL’s ultimate heartbreak and described the Detroit Lions’ loss in the NFC Championship Game as the “most devastating loss of all time.”
Rex Ryan on the Lions’ loss in the NFC Championship Game: “This is the most devastating loss of all-time. I’ve lost three championship games. You know what you get when you lose a championship game? Not a dang thing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This will haunt you for the rest… pic.twitter.com/A2eTdtmw3m
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 29, 2024
“I’ve lost three championship games,” Ryan said Monday. “You know what you get when you lose a championship game? Not a dang thing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This will haunt you for the rest of your life. And I’m telling you — because I can remember every damn one of those losses, everything about plays. That’s what it means to this football team, to Dan Campbell, to all of his coaches, and to every one of the players. They’re going to be with them forever.
“And you’re gonna react two different ways: you’re gonna let it just kill you, or you’re gonna sit back and say, ‘I’ll be damned if that happens again.”
Well, it happened again for Rex, and despite this happening over a decade ago to the former head coach of the Jets and later the Buffalo Bills, those losses remain in agony and at the forefront of his mind. At least to Dan Campbell’s credit, the Detroit Lions head coach was honest with his players after the game, telling them that Sunday’s 34-31 loss to the San Francisco 49ers could’ve been their only shot.
“Look, I told those guys. This may have been our only shot. Do I think that? No….It’s gonna be twice as hard to get back to this point next year.
“If we don’t have the same hunger and the same work…then we’ve got no shot of getting back here.” pic.twitter.com/E0C68W8OmM
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 29, 2024
Ryan’s raw honesty and Campbell’s sobering message offer a stark but valuable truth: the NFL is a game of inches, and the path to glory is paved with losses. While the sting of defeat may linger, it can also fuel the fire of motivation. The challenge for both Ryan and Campbell and any coach striving for championship glory, is to channel the pain of the past into the resolve needed to conquer the future. Only then can the agonizing memories of near misses transform into the sweet satisfaction of reaching the ultimate mountaintop.
