Sports

Coyer not ‘defensive’ about short stint with Jets

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — In quiet moments during breaks from the coaching grinds, Larry Coyer used to lean against a brick wall on the side of the Jets’ Hofstra practice facility and smoke his pipe for a few minutes of quiet time.

Coyer was the Jets defensive line coach back then as a member of Pete Carroll’s staff. It was his first NFL job after a long college coaching career.

Coyer is now the defensive coordinator of the Colts, who are trying to win their second Super Bowl in four years Sunday against the Saints.

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Yesterday, Coyer sat comfortably in the shade on a terrace overlooking the ocean at the team hotel and smoked his pipe in peace for a few minutes before going inside to the team’s required media interview sessions and reminisced about his New York experience.

Unfortunately for Coyer that experience lasted for just a year as then team owner Leon Hess fired Carroll and his staff after one 6-10 season and hired Rich Kotite.

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“I was shocked when it ended,” Coyer said yesterday. “I enjoyed the time in New York. That was a unique group. Pete Carroll had put together a really good football staff. I hated to see it end. I didn’t understand back then. I was younger and not quite as smart, but it was like they let the air out of your tires.”

Coyer recalled the day of reckoning like it happened yesterday.

“We had just finished playing our last game and had taken the week off,” he said. “We were to come back to start evaluations [on] the day Pete got fired. We were supposed to meet at 2 o’clock. Greg Robinson [the defensive coordinator] called me and said, ‘You better come in now.’

“From that point it was a whirlwind. I actually walked in the door with Richie as he came in the building. That was a shock, too, but it didn’t take long to figure it out.

“I’d been coaching college a long, long time and I felt, ‘Well, it was a good year.’ I went back to Iowa.”

In the life game of full-circle, Coyer was hired before this season to run the Colts defense by Colts head coach Jim Caldwell when he took over for Tony Dungy. In 1973, Coyer coached Caldwell as a young defensive back at the University of Iowa.

“A lot of guys lose touch with people,” Coyer said. “That shows you the loyalty Jim has.”

The springboard for Coyer to get to the Colts came in 2000 when he made the decision to join the Broncos, where he eventually became the defensive coordinator.

“When Coach [Mike] Shanahan called and I went, it was later in my career then and I had to make a decision,” Coyer said. “It was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

Coyer has the Colts defense more attacking than it was under Dungy. The Colts enter the Super Bowl having allowed just 20 points in two playoff games.

Now he’s about to coach in his first Super Bowl.

“I’ve been coaching a long time,” Coyer said between drags on the pipe, “and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to be in this game. It’s once in a lifetime.”