Rex Ryan: 9th Longest Tenured Head Coach in NFL

Rex Ryan enters training camp in 2014 as the ninth longest tenured head coach in the NFL.

The eight in front of him include six of the seven NFL head coaches who have won a Super Bowl, Bill Belichick, Tom Coughlin, Sean Payton, Mike McCarthy, Mike Tomlin, and John Harbaugh. Mike Smith and Marvin Lewis also have longer tenures than Rex.

The word stability gets thrown out a lot, but I think it is overrated. I have heard stability to justify keeping some lousy coaches in place such as Brian Schottenheimer for far too long. My guess is the fact those six coaches have won a championship has a lot more to do with their long tenures than their long tenures had to do with their teams winning it all.

I think it does say something good about the New York Jets' approach, though. There have been points where the Jets probably would have been justified to make a decision. What they have done is given their coach every chance to learn from his mistakes and grow. Maybe that counts as stability, but it's about more than just keeping the same guy in place. Rex showed early in his tenure some promising signs that he could be a very good head coach. The Jets have stuck by him and hoped he would reach his potential.

Only time will tell whether it was the right move, but part of me likes the thought process. It beats the past. On January 1, 2000, Bill Parcells was the head coach. Between then and 2008 Parcells, Bill Belichick (ever so briefly), Al Groh, Herman Edwards, and Eric Mangini occupied the top spot. It is nice to finally find a coach in whom they could invest.