Rex Ryan Thinks Things: This Can't End Well

If you haven't heard, Peter King and a group of other writers have formed The MMQB, a football-focused branch of Sports Illustrated. One of those writers is Jenny Vrentas, who I miss dearly as a beat reporter for the New York Jets, and dream she'll one day come back to us. Vrentas has a new article up today where she had Rex Ryan list ten things he thinks that he thinks, which probably won't end well.

Here are some highlights:

4. I think when we play the Buccaneers and Darrelle Revis in Week 1, I’ll make sure Marty Mornhinweg is very aware of the Revis Rules we used to follow in practice: If the ball is on the far hash mark from where Revis is lined up, you can forget about throwing a comeback or an out route his direction, because Revis is going to pick it.

This is important because it indicates Ryan is actually leaving it the offense up to Mornhinweg to run. He's going to advise him about things he wants done, but the indications all are that it's up to Mornhinweg to make the bulk of the decisions, as it should be.

5. I think the outside talk about me being a lame-duck coach really doesn’t bother me, because this is the best I’ve felt, ever. I’ve finally figured out how to be a head coach in my own way, and how to lead and get my vision of the team through to my players. I have to coach defense every single day. (emphasis added)

To follow up with the previous point, there's the indication here that Ryan is primarily focusing on defense, which is both a good and a bad thing. It's good because that's his specialty; that's what he's known for. It's bad because we've always wanted Ryan to take that step towards becoming a head coach, and not just a glorified defensive coordinator. But hey, if that's what works, then let's go with it.

9. I think the read-option is here to stay because of the young men who are running it. It used to be that if you had a running quarterback he really couldn’t throw, but now we have more of these great hybrid athletes entering the league and thriving at the position.

What this tells me is that Ryan isn't going to force a read-option if he doesn't believe he has a "great hybrid athlete" to run it. If we see more read-options this year, it's because Ryan (and more to the point, Mornhinweg, who, as I just stated is actually running the offense) believes there's a dynamic threat back there, not just because he wants to look cool and stay with the times.

But who knows, I'm probably just reading into these thoughts too much.