One man is already seemingly trying to get his foot in the door to become the next head coach of the Jets.
ESPN analyst and former Jets and Bills coach Rex Ryan seemed to be campaigning hard to be considered as a candidate for the position during an appearance on ESPN New York’s “Bart & Hahn.”
Ryan argued against blowing up the Jets’ roster when he started to make a point that he would be able to get the team’s current talent pool to win.
“I look at it this way, blow it up? We’re going to blow the opponents up,” Ryan told hosts Alan Hahn and Bart Scott, who played for Ryan during his time on the Jets. “There’s way too much talent on this team to play the way we’ve been playing. How hard can you get a guy to play? That’s the thing. Nobody has seen a team that is going to play as hard as this team’s going to play in the future, trust me. If I’m the guy, trust me.”
Ryan served as the Jets head coach through one of the franchise’s more successful periods in recent memory, though the vibe quickly shifted.
The Jets went 46-50 during Ryan’s run from 2009-14, which included back-to-back trips to the AFC championship game in his first two seasons.
However, the success quickly fizzled out, and he finished with losing records in two out of his last three seasons.
Ryan argued during Thursday’s radio appearance that there wasn’t another candidate out there that could embrace the Jets culture.
“That’s what is going to separate me from all these other guys you’re going to bring in. Your Grudens or whoever. Give me a break,” he continued. “They ain’t New York Jets. I’m all about the Jets. And the great thing is, yeah, you get a second chance at it and that doesn’t happen very often. Well, when it does it’s usually special. We’ll find out if I get that chance or not. If not, I hope they have one hell of a guy in place cause I still want to be a fan of the Jets. I still want to be, but when I look around I know nobody is better than me.”
Ryan had used another ESPN New York show earlier this week to suggest that the Jets would be in a better spot than they are now if he was at the helm.
The former NFL coach said on “DiPietro & Rothenberg” on Monday that the team would be “probably undefeated” if he had the job.
The response came after he had been asked where he thought the team would be if he was still coaching them.
The Jets are 3-8 as they enter their bye week, as their season has all but come to an end after starting the year with Super Bowl aspirations.
