There’s a man who Rex Ryan looks up to constantly, who seems atop this pedestal the Jets head coach himself wants to reach one day, a perch of immortality.
But Ryan knows it’s a long time until he can compare himself with Bill Belichick, the hooded mastermind who will troll the opposing sideline on Sunday in Foxborough, his cabinet at home holding three Super Bowl rings and his Patriots team imminently ready to break away from the four-team tie in the AFC East.
“If it was just between Belichick and me, he’s going to win that battle, I recognize that,” Ryan said yesterday at the team’s New Jersey practice facility. “But it’s not going to be by lack of effort on my part. He’s going to get everything I’ve got.”
Since Ryan took over at the helm of the Jets in 2009, he never has been one to short himself praise, proclaiming he wasn’t hired “to kiss Bill Belichick’s rings.’’ But the Patriots won the AFC East each of those three years, including a sweep of the Jets in 2011.
At the beginning of training camp this season, Ryan called himself the best defensive coach in the league, a sentiment he reiterated yesterday. Yet, somewhere in his psyche is still a touch of humility, as he is leaving that categorization of head coaches in the lap of Belichick.
“I don’t think I’m the best head coach in the league right now, I think he is,” Ryan said. “But I’m confident in my abilities and all that stuff. I just think when it’s all said and done, when you look at what he’s accomplished in his career as a head coach, there probably isn’t going to be anybody close to him.”
And Ryan sees that as both a challenge and an opportunity.
“The way I look at it as, you want to compete against the very best,” Ryan said. “I don’t want to compete against someone down here, but I want to compete against the guy up here. That’s where I want to get one day, and if I eventually get there, that would be great. Then maybe people would want to compete against me the same way. That would be terrific.”
Ryan’s defense, ranked a disappointing 18th in the league, will have its hands full this week, facing the Patriots’ No. 1-ranked offense without injured star cornerback Darrell Revis. Behind quarterback Tom Brady, the Patriots are third in the NFL in passing, averaging 293 yards per game, and fourth in rushing, averaging 152.3 yards.
They also have revved up their pace, using the no-huddle more often and forcing teams into bad matchups.
“They’re not used to being 3-3, I understand that,” Ryan said. “Actually, I really don’t care. We know that they’re a great football team and we have to be at our very best to have an opportunity to beat them.”