Rex Ryan didn’t learn his lesson. He is still the Rex-Rated head coach who can’t keep himself from putting his middle finger in the air or his foot in his mouth.
Much to the chagrin of Roger Goodell and Woody Johnson and no doubt his wallet, Ryan was all over YouTube yesterday for his unprofessional, foul-mouthed response to a fan who heckled him with: “[Bill] Belichick is better than you,” as he trudged through the tunnel on the way to the Jets locker room at halftime.
Rex-Rated looked up and snapped: “Shut the f— up,” and kept walking.
“I was full of emotion and just popped off,” Ryan said. “Obviously, I know I represent the National Football League, I know I represent the Jets, and I know it was a mistake. And I apologize for it.”
He was full of emotion and he popped off because Tom Brady had just driven the Patriots down his defense’s throat for the go-ahead touchdown immediately after what he decided was “the stupidest play in NFL history,” Mark Sanchez hearing the word timeout from the sidelines in his helmet and calling it with 17 seconds left on the play clock, ultimately leaving Brady with too much time.
He had already used the expression “You know” nine times during his chastened mea culpa when he continued with more.
“You know,” Rex-Rated continued, “this is who I am. You know, I made a mistake. You know … I’m about as big a competitor as there is, and at that time, I was in no mood to hear anything. But I also understand that, you know, I have to handle that, you know, better.”
Mike Tannenbaum knows.
“He knows his behavior was not acceptable,” Tannenbaum said in a statement issued by the team.
The fact of the matter is that Belichick and Tom Brady, by virtue of their prime-time smackdown, basically told Ryan and the Jets to “shut the f— up,” because the Road to Super Bowl XLVI will most probably not be going through East Rutherford.
Maybe it was a line Rex-Rated had rehearsed for his role as a Patriots fan in the new Adam Sandler flick.
Ryan is a media star because his press conferences are must-watch, must-listen events, a refreshing departure from Coachspeak drivel.
But he embarrasses the NFL, the organization and himself when he acts like an out-of-control frat boy out in the public eye.
This isn’t Animal House.
This is Goodell’s House.
To err is human, and Rex-Rated is as human as it gets.
Most of the time, it is a blessing for us.
Twice now, it has been a curse for him.
Three strikes, and we’ll start to wonder whether he is a graduate of STFU.
Rex-Rated was fined $50,000 by the Jets three days after his boorish behavior at an MMA event in Sunset, Fla., eight days before Super Bowl XLIV. It eventually came out that a heckling fan had spat at him.
“[Ryan] looked at us and said, ‘Go f — yourselves,’” the Dolphins fan said, “and then he gave us the finger.”
Tannenbaum said at the time: “Rex showed extremely poor judgment and his conduct was inappropriate.”
Even a contrite Ryan conceded then that it was “stupid and inappropriate.”
So Sunday night, the stupidest play in NFL history was followed almost immediately by the stupidest halftime outburst in NFL history.
Yesterday Rex-Rated said: “I make mistakes all the time, and I always, you know … I’m not perfect by any stretch. I try to get better, but sometimes, you know, my emotions get the best of me.”
His emotions could cost him a pretty penny. Titans owner Bud Adams earned himself a $250,000 fine in 2009 for flipping off Bills fans, remember. The commissioner frowns upon repeat offenders, remember.
Jets-Patriots was hardly Ali-Frazier. It was Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas, and the Jets wound up groping for the mouthpiece as the referee counted them out.
Ryan’s 12th Man showed up Sunday night. But his 11 men on the field did not.
But the most important one is Sanchez, whose consistent inconsistency defined the gap between his Jets and Brady’s Patriots.
“I don’t think he’s regressed,” Ryan said. “I’m glad Mark’s our quarterback.”
He didn’t seem so thrilled Mark was his quarterback when he called that timeout.
“Brian was gonna make the call and I said, ‘Use all the clock and then call a timeout,’” Ryan said. “And I think [quarterbacks coach] Matt Cavanaugh said, ‘What’s going on, are we gonna take a timeout?’ We said, ‘Yes.’ So Mark heard that, he never heard the full conversation that I had with Brian.”
Sounds like someone should have screamed, “Shut the f— up.”
WARNING: Video contains graphic language.