Messages come in many different tones and contexts and elicit varying results from their recipients.
When coach Rex Ryan delivers them they usually pack a punch and come with a side order of bravado and bluster.
Ryan’s message moments before the start of yesterday’s 37-10 blowout victory over the Chiefs at MetLife Stadium, though, was delivered with unusual subtlety, yet it was still powerfully motivating to his players.
PHOTOS: JETS ROUT CHIEFS, 37-10
When the Jets won the coin toss, instead of doing what Ryan almost always does — defer and start the game on defense — Ryan opted to take the ball first on offense.
It was only the fourth time in Ryan’s three seasons here — spanning 51 games including playoffs — that the Jets have won the toss and taken the ball first.
Ryan, knowing his defense was going to toy with the anemic Chiefs offense, was letting his offensive players know this game was on them.
Kansas City’s only realistic chance to win this game was with its defense which has disruptive tendencies shutting down Mark Sanchez and the Jets offense.
So Ryan opted to meet the Chiefs’ strength with his team’s perceived weakness to set a tone right away, and the Jets’ offense responded — emphatically and with feeling, marching 77 yards on 11 plays to take 7-0 lead on a 1-yard Sanchez touchdown on a bootleg keeper.
All season, the Jets’ offense has had an annoying propensity to snore through the alarm clock on game days, sleepwalking through the first three quarters before finally feeling a sense of urgency in the fourth quarter.
The Jets entered the game having scored on only two of their 12 opening drives this season (the others included six punts, two lost fumbles, one interception and a missed field goal), having produced only 40 first-quarter points this season.
Ryan said it was simply a “gut feeling’’ to put his offense out there first.
“We wanted to jump out early on them,’’ Ryan said. “I generally don’t decide and let anybody know until right before it happens.’’
Running back LaDainian Tomlinson, one of the team captains for the game, was instructed by special teams coach Mike Westhoff right before he went out for the toss to take the ball, and he felt his adrenaline rise immediately.
“My thought was, ‘OK Rex … all right, Rex … we want the ball … let’s go score,’ ’’ Tomlinson said. “Absolutely it was a message.’’
Referring to the precious few breathers the cardiac Jets have had this season, right guard Brandon Moore said one of Ryan’s messages in the Saturday night team meeting was, “We don’t have to make it so close all the time. It doesn’t have to come down to the fourth quarter.’’
Moore said when he was on the sideline and heard of Ryan’s decision to put the offense out first, “I definitely took notice.’’
“You take it as a message,’’ Moore said.
Whether he knew it or not, Ryan’s thinking with the coin toss fell very much into place with a message linebackers coach Bob Sutton delivered to his players in the form of a packet of game reminders with a cover page that featured two powerful quotes from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.’’
* “Ground in which the Army survives only if it fights with the courage of desperation is called Death.’’
* “It is a doctrine of war not to assume the enemy will not come, but rather to rely on one’s readiness to meet him; not to presume that he will not attack, but rather to make one’s self invincible.’’
The Jets began the day without control of their own destiny, their backs pressed to the wall with pressure to possibly have to win out to get into the playoffs. And, by virtue of their win and losses by their wild-card competitors, the Bengals, Titans and Raiders, the Jets’ day ended with them back in control of their destiny.
“Either you’re going to fight or you’re going to die,’’ Jets linebacker Calvin Pace said, referring to the messages that packet Sutton handed out. “It’s kind of symbolic of where we are in our season. So we just keep fighting.’’