Rex Ryan, the talkative head coach of The New York Jets, seems to think he owes the New York media an explanation for what he does as coach. This perception caused Rex Ryan to go a tad off the rails in explaining why he elected to throw in Mark Sanchez, his experienced veteran quarterback, to play with second-and-third-string players, some who may not survive the upcoming rouster cut, just to win a meaningless preseason game against the New York Giants.
Ryan caused the problem by throwing in his prized rookie Geno Smith into the fire without the benefit of a game plan. The result was 16 of 30 for 116 yards, one touchown and three interceptions, one of them that came off a zone-blitz that Smith undoutedly wasn’t prepared to catch from the Giants.
Still, the effort fueled the fire of Geno Smith haters, but then Mark Sanchez haters who wanted to see the former USC QB go out and be replaced by Smith, got something close to their wish when Sanchez was injured after entering the game in the 4th quarter.
Obviously, Rex Ryan’s judgement was questionable, but his behavior at the presser gave a glimpse into the mind of a man under a little more pressure than he can handle.
It wasn’t a great meltdown, like that of an angry Dennis Green, after his Arizona Cardinals failed to beat the hot Chicago Bears in 2006, who pounded the podium and said “The Bears are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook!”
For his part, Rex should have stuck to the injury report, kept the answers to questions to one sentence, and then repeat that answer for each question that was the same, and got out of there.
Instead, he has a new problem to go with his QB woes: one of leadership.
Stay tuned.