If you’ve watched or listened to Rex Ryan on Get Up, the former New York Jets and Buffalo Bills head coach has made no qualms about wanting to get back into coaching. He’s often flirted — and while on TV — about his next presumptive coaching gig, as he had talked about becoming a defensive coordinator with the Denver Broncos and Dallas Cowboys in recent years.
Ryan even went as far as to say that he might’ve taken the DC job in Dallas, but the Cowboys and Mike McCarthy never “ponied up.” But Ryan seems to still have unfinished business on NFL sidelines, a point he made on Ryan Clark’s The Pivot podcast, which just so happened to premiere a day after he openly lobbied for the Jets’ coaching gig on ESPN’s airwaves.
“How different would our world be if every single person played football and grew up in a damn locker room…” Rex Ryan
We got a treat for you today or as he would say, “A Goddamn Snack”. 😭
We have seen many sides of Rex Ryan, but we have never seen him like this…He takes us… pic.twitter.com/irhgDvL3a5
— Pivot Podcast (@thepivot) October 22, 2024
If you know the history there, Woody Johnson viewed Ryan as one of his own. He quickly took the Jets to back-to-back AFC Championship Games but was never really able to recapture that magic again. After losing to the Giants on Christmas Day and being disproportionately affected by the 2011 lockout—as detailed in Nicholas Dawidoff’s “Collision Low Crossers,” the Jets (and Ryan) never recovered.
Johnson opted to fire Mike Tanenbaum and keep Ryan, pairing him with a would-be seventh general managerial choice in John Idizk. Needless to say, that arraigned marriage didn’t work, and both were out of a job following the 2014 NFL season.
But Ryan seems to be the only head coach Johnson has had an affinity for. He hired Todd Bowles after Ryan was let go and was seemingly not involved in the hirings of Adam Gase and Robert Saleh, as his brother, Christopher, assumed control of the team’s ownership while he served as the United States ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Back to Rex: He was visibly fired up during Monday’s Get Up, passionately discussing his former team. You could feel his intensity as he urged the Jets players and coaches to rediscover their pride.
“For me, as a coach, you hire me. Why? Because I’m going to create that culture; that team is more important than the friggin’ individual,” he said. “When the team wins, everybody wins. It ain’t about the name on the back; it’s about the name on the front of the damn jersey.
“Be proud to be a damn New York Jet. Right now, I don’t see it. I see, ‘I’m proud to be Aaron Rodgers,’ ‘I’m proud to be this guy,’ ‘I’m proud to be that guy.’ How bout being proud to be a friggin’ New York Jet? Where’s the passion for it? And I think that starts from the top as a damn head coach.
“I know this kid’s (Jeff Ulbrich) thrown in there; he’s way above his ahead. I get it. And is it hard as hell to be a d-coordinator and a head coach? You’re damn right it is…”
Rex Ryan was fired up talking about the Jets this morning.
“Be proud to be a damn New York Jet. Right now, I don’t see it. I see, ‘I’m proud to be Aaron Rodgers,’ ‘I’m proud to be this guy,’ ‘I’m proud to be that guy.’ How bout being proud to be a friggin’ New York Jet?” pic.twitter.com/qBEMwQBcOl
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 21, 2024
That passion comes from somebody that has still has the fire in his belly to be a head coach in the National Football League. But since he got fired by the Bills, no one has picked up the phone and called Ryan. He’s been out of the NFL for eight years now — and hasn’t as much gotten a phone call about a head coaching job.
“Nobody called,” he explained to Pivot co-host Channing Crowder. “I never got one friggin’ phone call. Not one chance to be a head coach…not a single interview. And as far as being a defensive coordinator, I reached out to Dallas this year because I figured, ‘Hell, this team is loaded,’ that I’ll go out and maybe this will give me the opportunity to show that, ‘Yeah, I am the best that’s ever done it.’
“But, there are very few teams like that. To assume that, well, I’d just take any coordinator job, that’s not the case. But, being a head coach, hell yeah, I want to go back. But it’s a two-way street and that street looks like a one way — and that’s me the hell out of here.
“And don’t get me wrong, I love what I do. I absolutely love what I do right now, and I feel like I have my own little teams or whatever. But damn right, I miss it, especially when you think it’s your life’s work and you still haven’t accomplished the main goal which you wanted to accomplish, which is being a world champion as a head coach.”
Ryan might be content in front of the camera at ESPN for now, but it’s clear that he longs to return to the sidelines.
Whether the NFL — or the Jets — will come calling remains to be seen, but if there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that Ryan isn’t done talking — and more importantly, he isn’t done coaching, at least in his mind.
Until then, he’ll keep waiting for a team to realize they need a little more Rex in their life, and perhaps that someone is Woody Johnson.
