To keep or not to keep is the question about Rex Ryan, and there is no easy answer, no pounding the table to keep him when he has missed the playoffs three years in a row, since you are what your record says you are, and all that.
Nevertheless, I’ve decided to pound the table.
No matter how you feel about Ryan, there should be no doubt now he has done his best coaching job since 2010. He has overachieved with a team led by a rookie quarterback that would be hard-pressed to score on Columbia. A team that rookie general manager John Idzik tore down last offseason. He has molded it into a close-knit team that cares for one another, and for its coach, and will run through a wall for him. There is every reason to believe this will soon be a team on the rise, if it isn’t already. He has earned the right to coach this team in 2014.
Woody Johnson has saved Ryan before, only a year ago when he whacked Mike Tannenbaum.
For Ryan out loud, save him, Woody!
It’s your team, last time I checked.
Unless Idzik has found The Next Bill Walsh — highly unlikely — the argument for continuity and stability, with Marty Mornhinweg and David Lee developing Geno Smith, with Ryan directing his defense, trumps the case for change.
“Rex is building something that’s very special,” one Jet told The Post. “Without him, without his philosophy, we take a step back from what we’re building. … It’s tough to start all over. We did that last year.”
Ryan always thought football was a game of inches.
But now he wonders whether it is a game of Grinches.
Grinches named Idzik and Johnson.
It was Johnson who stole Christmas from Tannenbaum at the end of last season. It was Johnson who played Santa for Ryan and gifted him his job. And forced his new right-hand man, Idzik, to give Ryan a year to see what he thinks about him.
This isn’t a democracy. It is a bottom line business. The inmates do not run the asylum.
“I’ve not been around a head coach that is as loved as he is, and guys want to play for a coach as much as they do,” David Garrard told The Post. “I would hear that on the outside looking in when I wasn’t with the team and I was trying to figure out why, but when you’re here, you see how genuine he is and how much he loves his players. It just motivates guys more to want to play hard for him.”
Black Monday is a way of life for NFL coaches hired to be fired, and perhaps if or when the Grinches sing “Auld Lang Syne” to him, Ryan will regret sabotaging Mark Sanchez to win the prestigious Snoopy Bowl, and wonder whether he could have stolen a couple of more games and reached the playoffs and gotten himself another Stay of Rexecution.
“I can’t really speak for the rest of the locker room. … I’m sure if they feel the way that I would, it would definitely be heartbroken,” Garrard said. “This guy comes across more as a great friend, and a great older father or older brother-type relationship. You don’t understand how much he cares for his players, and the way he leads his players. He really speaks from the heart. I know for myself, I would definitely be heartbroken.”
It was never about this year for Idzik, a year he preferred to call building rather than rebuilding. By all indications, he has had a good working relationship with Ryan. But he was never joined at the hip with him the way Ryan was joined at the hip with Tannenbaum.
Idzik is joined at the hip with Johnson.
The way Ryan always seemed to be joined at the hip with Johnson.
If this was a Playoffs-or-Bust season for Ryan, then he would have every right to believe the fix was in, every right to feel he was set up to fail. He wouldn’t be the first, of course, nor would he be the last.
If Idzik has decides it is time for a bright offensive mind to navigate the Jets through the modern-day NFL quarterback-driven waters, then that is his right.
It appears that after three straight years missing the playoffs, winning is more important to Johnson than winning the backpage of the tabloids and the number of hits on blogs.
“You can try to change things and try to mix it up,” Garrard said, “but the grass isn’t always greener.”
For Ryan out loud, save him, Woody!