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Well, on the one hand, Rex Ryan could be channeling his Inner Costanza.
He could be embracing The Opposite, as George did on “Seinfeld” when, among other things, while sitting for a job interview with George Steinbrenner, he had the following exchange with The Boss:
Steinbrenner: “Nice to meet you.”
Costanza: “Well, I wish I could say the same, but I must say, with all due respect, I find it very hard to see the logic behind some of the moves you have made with this fine organization. In the past 20 years you have caused myself, and the city of New York, a good deal of distress, as we have watched you take our beloved Yankees and reduced them to a laughing stock, all for the glorification of your massive ego!”
Steinbrenner: “Hire this man!”
The Ryan Jets have played the Belichick Patriots eight times, and have had as good a run against them as anyone else besides the Giants. They’re 3-5 against their rivals, a few plays a few weeks ago from being 4-4, and it seems the tried and true method for preparing his teams for these Northeast Corridor holy wars has always been the same: Poke the bear with a stick, with a fork, occasionally with a feather.
This takes various forms. Lately, Ryan has sounded as if he’s preparing to present Bill Belichick at his Canton induction ceremony. Just last month, for instance, Ryan had this to say about the Man Under the Hoodie: “When I look at him, I see him as the best coach in the league … Maybe he struggles one day, something happens, he’s sick, maybe I’ll get him.”
Sometimes, it has been his players, who in four years have never exactly been shy about taking the baton from Ryan during Patriots Weeks the way Usain Bolt grabs it on the anchor leg of the 4 x 100. Remember Antonio Cromartie? “He’s a bleep. Bleep him,” he said a few years ago … and a few days later the Jets knocked the Pats out of the playoffs in Foxborough.
Now?
Well, Ryan’s been tempering his act all year, so maybe we should have been ready for this. A few of his chattier players aren’t quite as enamored attaching their names to colorful quotes as they used to be, so there’s that. Seeing what’s become of Bart Scott is sad; it’s as if Sinatra woke up one day and suddenly had Tiny Tim’s voice.
Suddenly, the Patriots don’t seem to inspire fire and brimstone, don’t inspire the “In my book, we’re already winners” pep talk from “Hoosiers,” or the “No one comes into our house and pushes us around” pep talk from “Rudy” or Pacino’s “We heal now as a team or we die as individuals” talk from “Any Given Sunday.”
Suddenly, they are just another team.
Thursday’s sounds like just another game.
And you know something? Maybe that isn’t such a terrible way to go with this team, in this season, facing the still-steep hill in front of them.
“We’ve earned where we are, and we just have to find a way to punch our way out,” Ryan said yesterday. “That’s it. I’m not even worried about tweaking New England or anybody else. It’s to the point where we have to focus on us.”
The Ryan Jets have been a no-ring circus at times but they’ve been a mostly interesting carnival, and maybe it was inevitable that the thorough embracing of the First Amendment was bound to come back to haunt them in time. The Pats always brought the brash out of them, but that seems to belong to the archives right now.
Wistful times for empty notebooks.
Wisdom for a desperate football team.
“That’s how it should be,” quarterback Mark Sanchez said. “Nothing else matters but getting the chance to play a great football team and trying to get a win on Thanksgiving night. What else could you want?”
Said guard Matt Slauson: “I don’t hate the Patriots. I respect the heck out of them. I just like us better.
Added Cromartie: “.”
Yes. Even the great Cro has decided to take a step back from Patriots Week and embrace the silence. The Opposite has spoken.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com