NFL

Ryan praises ‘fearless’ Jets

ATLANTA — The Jets found an identity last night. They will fight you from one end zone to the next. The kind of team that is so dear to Rex Ryan’s heart.

“You know what? I’m glad we won this way,” a defiant Rex Ryan said after Jets 30, Falcons 28. “I’m glad we won this way because it took … every … one of us. And it wasn’t that you leaned on one side, and the other side whatever … it took every one of us, and we played fearless. Even our kicker’s fearless, ‘Folk hero’, I already got that one written for everybody.”

Ryan kept using the word fearless as he stood at a podium outside a visiting locker room filled with fighters wearing big smiles.

“Like I said, we played fearless,” Ryan said. “As soon as our offense got the ball, there wasn’t one guy on that sideline didn’t think we were going to win the game. It absolutely took everybody we had.”

There was a galvanizing goal-line stand at the end of the first half. There was Ryan the defensive genius winning a chess game until the fourth quarter with relentless Matt Ryan. There was a ground and pound attack (22 rushing attempts for 118 yards) that averaged 5.4 yards per carry.

“We might not be pretty or whatever, but we don’t care,” Ryan said. “We’re a football team, and we’ll compete to the very end.”

He was proud of Geno Smith, the hero. He was proud of every last Jet. “It was just a great team effort, and I’m so happy we won this way,” Ryan reiterated. “But that just shows that we are a football team, and like I said, we’re fearless, and that’s what it took today.”

There was the dominance of Mo Wilkerson.

“He’s a tremendous player … man, just proud of our football team,” Ryan said.

He was asked if people’s view of his team might change now.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ryan said. “With us, all we care about is the Jet fans, and what’s inside our walls. That’s all we care about, and outsiders are going to say what they’re going to say, and they have. They’ve already spoken when they picked us 32nd in the league, OK? But again, it doesn’t matter. We just care about ourselves, we care about our Jet fans.”