SAN DIEGO — Here’s something you didn’t expect to hear in the Jets’ victorious locker room last night — praise for Eric Mangini.
“I’ve got to go on record and thank Eric Mangini for giving me the chance to be a part of Coach Rex,” said Jets receiver Braylon Edwards, who was traded in October from Mangini’s Browns. “I’ve never in my life been a part of anything like this. I’m ecstatic. Words can’t really describe how I feel. I feel as though we have the ability to go all the way.”
After the 17-14 AFC Divisional victory over the Chargers, the former Jets coach was far from most of his players’ minds. Instead, they were singing the praises of their current coach, Rex Ryan, and his sweater-vest wearing, Super Bowl predicting, self-deprecating ways.
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“Attitude,” cornerback Darrelle Revis said of what Ryan brought to the Jets. “I think that’s the biggest thing he brought to this team. The last two years I’ve been on this team we haven’t had a lot of leadership and a lot of guys were just going through it. I think this year he’s brought a lot of attitude to us sticking together as a team and being aggressive.”
When the brash coach from Baltimore replaced Mangini a year ago, he made no secret of what the Jets’ goal was. At the time, people rolled their eyes when he spoke of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
Doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore.
“We believed the whole time, the whole year, when probably it wasn’t the popular choice, the popular opinion,” Ryan said. “But here we are. We don’t have to apologize to anybody. It’s just old-fashioned, ground and pound football and throw completions and play great defense, and here we are.”
Ryan showed his team a highlight film of Mike Tyson fights Saturday night. Yesterday’s coaching matchup was like a vintage Tyson first-round knockout. While Norv Turner added to his legacy of failure, Ryan pushed the right buttons.
He went for a field goal when some called for him to go for a touchdown. He went for a fourth-and-1 to ice the game rather than kicking it. He made a defensive adjustment to stop the Chargers offense, using more man-to-man.
Ryan’s biggest coaching move, though, was changing the environment around the Jets.
“It definitely comes from the head man,” safety Kerry Rhodes said. “He’s a confident guy. He’s going to say what he wants to say. He’s going to give you the belief that you need to be successful. Going into any situation we’re not going to be rattled. We’re going to come out and just play our game.”