Going Out Like the Guy He Once Hated

This is the best take on Rex Ryan I have seen. In fact, I fully retract my previous "theory" that he was coaching like a guy in his final 10 minutes on the highway, trying all kinds of crazy crap in a futile attempt to survive.

Steve Politi of the Newark Star-Ledger, points out that Rex is essentially, going out like a bitch. Like the very coach he railed against when he arrived in NY, and without all the "now, let's go get a fucking snack" swagger of better times, long since passed.

Ryan is going down, and he is going down as a deflated, neutered, colorless (and maybe powerless) drone.

That, really, is almost sad. Coaches get fired all the time, especially coaches without a decent quarterback on their roster, so maybe this outcome was inevitable for Ryan no matter how promising the start.

But for it to happen like this? It’s as if Ryan had lap-band surgery on his personality. He is stumbling toward the end of his tenure with the Jets, barring an unforeseen and unlikely season, as exactly the type of coach he mocked early in his tenure with the Jets.

Bland. Secretive. Paranoid. His press conference in Florham Park on Monday was the moment that completed his transformation from a refreshing presence into Mangini II. How soon before he reinstalls the paper shredders in the locker room so the players can destroy their practice plans?

Oh how I remember the days of ol' fat Rex, bragging that he felt he was better than Bill Belichick. Shrugging off the whole embarassing foot fetish episode because he was still considered a sharp and bright coaching mind - when not rubbing some woman's pedicured toes.

Good times, good times.

Now he's got several completely shit QBs, a roster that's drained of just about everything else, and the end is near.

Politi is right, Rex. Don't be a bitch. Go down swinging, with swagger. It will at least prevent you from being tagged with one of the more dreaded labels in sports: "phony."