Jets legend Joe Namath fired some shots at coach Rex Ryan yesterday, saying the Jets were not prepared in Sunday’s 34-24 loss to the Raiders because Ryan has made them overconfident.
“It’s rather alarming,” Namath said on 1050 ESPN Radio yesterday. “It starts at the top. Coach Rex Ryan, he’s been doing a great job, getting us to two conference championship games, but there’s one thing about the athlete: You keep telling him how good he is, he’s going to start believing it to the point that he may not be preparing quite the way he should. He may be losing some respect for the other team.”
Ryan fired back, saying Namath does not know what he’s talking about.
“I’m not going to change who I am because Joe Namath said something,” Ryan said. “Joe Namath can come in here and if he can still throw we’ll have him as a backup quarterback. But you know what? He doesn’t know our team. He’s on the outside, even though he’s a Jet and once you’re a Jet you’re always a Jet. But he’s on the outside. He’s not in these meetings. I think if he was he’d be shocked at the preparation.”
Namath, who famously guaranteed the Super Bowl III victory by the Jets, said Ryan might be praising his team too much.
“I think these guys might be believing that they’re better than they are,” Namath said. “Rex has been the only coach . . . that keeps continually telling his guys how good they are. And they have been pretty good — pretty good — but they haven’t won a championship yet. I think they’ve got to remember that there’s room for improvement.”
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On their last possession against the Raiders, the Jets had an interesting choice: Trailing by 10 points with barely a minute remaining, they could have gone for a field goal, then tried an onside kick to get the ball back and go for a touchdown.
Instead, the Jets tried to score a touchdown, and came up just short when Mark Sanchez was stopped at the 1 on fourth down. Ryan said he would have kicked the field goal if the drive stalled, but once they got inside the 10, he was thinking touchdown.
“If you can’t score from the 2 you don’t deserve to win it anyway,” Ryan said.