If he could do things all over again, Rex Ryan says he would change his approach in his final season with the Jets.
Ryan, who now coaches the Bills, was the Jets' coach from 2009-14. As he reflected on the messy end to his tenure — and the conclusion of general manager John Idzik's two-year reign — Ryan told NFL Media's Albert Breer that he took the incorrect approach. Sort of.
"When I look back on it, I looked at when I should've been more upfront with the owner," Ryan said. "I think that was a big thing: 'Look, we got some issues. This needs to be resolved.' I knew what was going to happen. We all knew it.
"But now, there's no way in hell [that happens again]. If I'm going down, I'm going down swinging. And if it happens, it's going to be: 'Here's some issues we need to fix.' And hit them head on."
OK, so Ryan isn't really saying he made mistakes in his coaching approach, even though it's obvious he was far from perfect. He's saying he should've spoken to owner Woody Johnson about what Ryan perceived to be problems within the Jets' facility and front office. That's what Ryan is getting at, in those somewhat vague comments to Breer.
Earlier this offseason, Ryan blasted the Jets in an interview with Sports Illustrated, in which he unsurprisingly took little to no blame for last year's 4-12 disaster. Ryan has never been very good about recognizing his own flaws, or publicly admitting them.
During his interview with Breer, Ryan made some other vague remarks about the Jets' problems in 2014 — and how he thinks the Bills will be different in 2015.
"You have to roll the exact same way, and we don't need anybody that's going to be an anchor to this team or have a hidden agenda," Ryan said. "Once you chop all that off, we're going to be pretty good. And again, we may not get to where we want to go. We want to paddle to a damn Super Bowl. Everyone gets that. We may end up somewhere else, but at least we're going to go together."
"We all want the same thing. We want to win and we're willing to do whatever it takes to get there. We see it. We know the direction that we need to take. There's no hidden agendas. There's no whatever. This is how we're going to do things, and we're going to get it done. We won't compromise, and we will make sure people are on the same boat, paddling in the same direction."
This seems like a reasonable enough idea.
And sure, maybe there were negative "hidden" agendas last season with the Jets. It was clear, at least, that Idzik and Ryan were on completely different tracks, with Idzik planning for the future and Ryan needing to win immediately, in order to save his job.
But Ryan once again pinning the Jets' problems so significantly on factors other than his own errors only underscores one of his biggest flaws — his inability and/or unwillingness to accept his share of the blame.
http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2015/05/buffalo_bills_rex_ryan_admits_he_made_mistakes_wit.html
Ryan, who now coaches the Bills, was the Jets' coach from 2009-14. As he reflected on the messy end to his tenure — and the conclusion of general manager John Idzik's two-year reign — Ryan told NFL Media's Albert Breer that he took the incorrect approach. Sort of.
"When I look back on it, I looked at when I should've been more upfront with the owner," Ryan said. "I think that was a big thing: 'Look, we got some issues. This needs to be resolved.' I knew what was going to happen. We all knew it.
"But now, there's no way in hell [that happens again]. If I'm going down, I'm going down swinging. And if it happens, it's going to be: 'Here's some issues we need to fix.' And hit them head on."
OK, so Ryan isn't really saying he made mistakes in his coaching approach, even though it's obvious he was far from perfect. He's saying he should've spoken to owner Woody Johnson about what Ryan perceived to be problems within the Jets' facility and front office. That's what Ryan is getting at, in those somewhat vague comments to Breer.
Earlier this offseason, Ryan blasted the Jets in an interview with Sports Illustrated, in which he unsurprisingly took little to no blame for last year's 4-12 disaster. Ryan has never been very good about recognizing his own flaws, or publicly admitting them.
During his interview with Breer, Ryan made some other vague remarks about the Jets' problems in 2014 — and how he thinks the Bills will be different in 2015.
"You have to roll the exact same way, and we don't need anybody that's going to be an anchor to this team or have a hidden agenda," Ryan said. "Once you chop all that off, we're going to be pretty good. And again, we may not get to where we want to go. We want to paddle to a damn Super Bowl. Everyone gets that. We may end up somewhere else, but at least we're going to go together."
"We all want the same thing. We want to win and we're willing to do whatever it takes to get there. We see it. We know the direction that we need to take. There's no hidden agendas. There's no whatever. This is how we're going to do things, and we're going to get it done. We won't compromise, and we will make sure people are on the same boat, paddling in the same direction."
This seems like a reasonable enough idea.
And sure, maybe there were negative "hidden" agendas last season with the Jets. It was clear, at least, that Idzik and Ryan were on completely different tracks, with Idzik planning for the future and Ryan needing to win immediately, in order to save his job.
But Ryan once again pinning the Jets' problems so significantly on factors other than his own errors only underscores one of his biggest flaws — his inability and/or unwillingness to accept his share of the blame.
http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2015/05/buffalo_bills_rex_ryan_admits_he_made_mistakes_wit.html
