NFL

Jets head coach Rex Ryan’s tattoo controversy gives love a bad name

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(Splash News)

STAMP OF APPROVAL: Jets coach Rex Ryan, kissing his wife while on vacation this week in the Bahamas with his tattoo of her on display, is only guilty of being in love with his spouse, writes The Post’s Mike Vaccaro.

STAMP OF APPROVAL: Jets coach Rex Ryan, kissing his wife while on vacation this week in the Bahamas with his tattoo of her on display, is only guilty of being in love with his spouse, writes The Post’s Mike Vaccaro. (Splash News))

WE’RE CONFUSED, TOO: Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez (inset) is immortalized on the arm of coach Rex Ryan, whose tattoo shows his wife Michelle wearing just a No. 6 Sanchez jersey.

WE’RE CONFUSED, TOO: Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez (inset) is immortalized on the arm of coach Rex Ryan, whose tattoo shows his wife Michelle wearing just a No. 6 Sanchez jersey. (Splash News; Paul J. Bereswill)

STAMP OF APPROVAL: Jets coach Rex Ryan, kissing his wife (inset) while on vacation this week in the Bahamas with his tattoo of her on display, is only guilty of being in love with his spouse, writes The Post’s Mike Vaccaro. (
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It isn’t like you have to spend your whole day grinding through search engines to find examples of famous coaches who truly behave badly. Remember Bobby Petrino, who while he was coaching Arkansas football was handing out a staff job to his mistress, a scheme that ended badly (and bloodily) when the lovebirds wound up in a motorcycle accident?

Remember Rick Pitino? He was the target of an extortion attempt brought about by what he admitted was an extra-marital affair, including what he also admitted was a brief sexual encounter inside Portini’s, a Louisville restaurant.

Remember Mike Price, who lost his job at Alabama without ever coaching a game there after his hard-partying ways came to light, including one encounter with a stripper named Destiny and another in which two women from Pensacola, Fla., reportedly wound up sharing a hotel room with him?

So here’s the thing: if Rex Ryan wants to shout to the high heavens that he remains in love with his wife after all these years, he can do it any way he wants. He can enter karaoke contests and warble “Just the Way You Are” every single night. He can hire a sky writer to scrawl, “Luv U Michelle” high above New Jersey. He can engage in whatever fetish he pleases, assuming she enjoys the same hobbies.

And he can get a tattoo with a cartoon image of his wife wearing a Mark Sanchez jersey. Hell, if he wants to get another with her in a Vlad Ducasse jersey, and another with her in Wayne Hunter’s old shoulder pads? More power to him. Because I feel exactly the same way today as I did the day almost two years ago when the world went hysterical over the possibility that Rex gets a kick out of his wife’s feet:

Since when have we gone so crazily over the line as a society that it’s possible to be too in love with your wife?

You know what Rex is? He’s a guy like a million other guys, a guy who married up and who isn’t afraid to tell the world about it. He’s Kevin James getting to play Leah Remini’s husband on “The King of Queens” for nine seasons while most of America laughed: Yeah, right. He’s Billy Joel making the world shake its head during those years he was married to Christie Brinkley.

He’s out over his skis.

He’s outkicked his coverage.

And for those of us who have done likewise, of course we want the world to know. Maybe we don’t get tattoos. Certainly, in retrospect, it might have been a wiser decision to go with the always-trusty No. 12 jersey, just in case things didn’t work out so well with No. 6 (which, you may have heard, is sort of how it’s gone down).

But the pictures in this newspaper this morning, frolicking in the surf? These are two people who still seem awfully fond of each other even after 25 years of marriage.

And that’s supposed to be a bad thing?

Really?

Look, this has nothing — nothing — to do with the more pressing issue surrounding Ryan, about whether he deserved to be purged along with Mike Tannenbaum, about whether he has any chance to succeed under a new general manager, if he can survive the lame-duck year to come.

Doesn’t even answer if he deserves to be; certainly any question whether a tattoo is an issue of possible derision in a professional locker room is at best disingenuous when you consider the number of tattoos in any professional locker room. Ryan may not make it out of next year, but the tat won’t be why.

If anything, this is just another PR fiasco by the Jets, who really should simply adopt the Costanza Plan and do the exact opposite of what their instincts say. If they had the common sense to make Ryan available for 20 minutes earlier in the week, he could have enjoyed paradise in private. But the Jets always think they’re smarter than everyone else. So we got to see …

What, exactly? Further proof that Rex Ryan loves his wife?

Yeah. Awful story. Get the scarlet letter ready.