The Giants are a better team than the Jets, even though the Giants put their season to bed a while back and the Jets have awakened their fan base as they storm into the AFC Championship.
The reason for this is because Rex Ryan allows the Jets to have fun, an atmosphere Tom Coughlin doesn’t allow to exist with the Giants. That’s the opinion of safety Antrel Rolle, who in his first season with the Giants never came up short in saying what’s on his mind.
“I’d like to see the Jets take it, I honestly would,” Rolle said yesterday in a radio interview with Sid Rosenberg on WQAM in Miami. “I’m a firm believer in you get what you deserve. They’ve been working hard all year long. Do I think they’re the best team out there? I don’t think they’re the best team out there. You can name a lot of teams better than them. If you match us up against the Jets, do I think they’re a better team? No, I don’t think so at all.
“But when it comes to their chemistry, I think their chemistry might be better than ours. I think they have a lot more fun than we have … At the end of the day, yeah, we’re professional athletes, we get paid a lot of money to do what we do but we’re all human. No one is a robot at this level. We do have feelings, we like to have fun.”
The Jets under Ryan are all about fun, and winning, too.
“People want to talk about Rex Ryan and this, that and the other, that team is going to war for him,” Rolle said. “They would die for him.”
The Giants’ other starting safety, Kenny Phillips, also joined in the interview and clearly is intrigued by Ryan’s coaching style.
“I would love to play for a guy like Rex,” Phillips told Rosenberg. “He goes to bat for his players. He’ll take the blame, he allows you to be you. He’s not asking you to hide. If you’re a guy who likes to talk, go out and talk, as long as you back it up. His guys are playing for him and I’d love to be a part of that.”
Asked, “Who is Tom Coughlin?” Phillips said, “Honestly I don’t know. Still trying to figure it out. I’m going into my fourth year and I’m still trying to feel him out. He’s a strict guy, sometimes he’s kind of loose. He’s sort of like a general, especially the way he runs his football team.”
Rolle separates Coughlin the man from Coughlin the coach. The man, he enjoys. “On a personal level he’s one of the best guys you could be around,” Rolle said. “Very caring. Honest guy.”
As a coach?
“Honestly, that’s where the problem comes with me, as a coach. When you’re talking about the coaching side of things, do I feel like things are a little too uptight? Yeah, I do. If he just loosened up just a little bit, run the ship the way you want to run it, run the program the way you want to run it but let us have a little fun, because at the end of the day that’s what it’s all about.
“He has to understand we have a great team, we don’t have guys with discipline problems. We’re going to pretty much handle our own outside of football. When it comes to football we’re going to take care of our business on the field. Just let us have a little fun a little bit, man. I like the coach, I understand what he’s trying to do but he has to understand it’s 2011, man, things have changed.”