Rex Ryan is lining up at “write” tackle.
Though he still is playing safety in avoiding mention of his foot-fetish scandal in his new book, “Play Like You Mean It,” due out next week, the loudmouth Jets head coach is not shy about blasting away at NFL rivals or making bold statements.
Ryan throws the book at former Jets safety Kerry Rhodes, who was shipped off to the Cardinals in a trade because he did not take to Ryan’s coaching.
“He was a selfish-[a–] guy,” Ryan said of Rhodes. “He wouldn’t work and he was a Hollywood type, flashy and needing attention.”
Ryan also writes that he didn’t like draft bust Vernon Gholston coming out of Ohio State, saying he “thought he was a phony.” But Ryan says he came to support the linebacker once he became “one of my guys.” Gholston was released earlier this offseason.
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There is plenty of Ryan’s usual bravado in the book. He takes the opportunity to tweak the Giants, saying of the local rivalry, “I know it’s going to [tick] off Giants fans, but . . . we are the better team. We are the big brother.”
And he continues to predict greatness for his team, writing in the final sentence of the book: “I’ll say it every time I’m asked . . . This team is soon to be champs.”
Ryan explains Tony Dungy’s harsh comments about his cursing on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” left him “really upset.”
In another anecdote, Ryan recalls being prepared to take the next flight to Hattiesburg, Miss., after the 2009 draft to convince quarterback Brett Favre to return to the team had the Jets not traded up to select Mark Sanchez.
“Part of me really wanted to coach Favre and I think we would have been great with him,” he writes.
Ryan devotes a chapter to the drama-filled 2010 season, saying he was mortified by the Ines Sainz incident and offering to take a lie-detector test to prove he had no prior knowledge about Sal Alosi’s Tripgate tactics.
But the loquacious coach does not discuss the controversy that surfaced late in the season surrounding foot-fetish videos starring a woman who appears to be Ryan’s wife, Michelle, and featuring a voice that sounds like Rex’s.
Ryan speeds through one non-informative paragraph late in the book, mentioning “it wouldn’t be the Jets’ 2010 season without some weird thing happening.” He maintains, as he did when the story broke, that it’s a “personal issue.”
The closest Ryan comes to addressing the issue, which he consistently declined to comment on last season, is when he reveals that Patriots receiver Wes Welker apologized to him and his wife at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii.
Welker had conducted a tongue-in-cheek press conference in the week before the Jets-Patriots playoff game using a slew of foot references. Patriots coach Bill Belichick was so furious at Welker he benched him for the first offensive series of the game.
“When I went to Hawaii, the kid came up and apologized to me and my wife,” Ryan writes. “No hard feelings.”
Ryan also reveals he asked NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to “rip” him along with wide receiver Santonio Holmes for embarrassing off-field incidents because he thought it would help make him and Holmes closer.
Ryan’s publicity blitz will include an appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman” on Monday.