Play Like You Mean It Read online

  Copyright © 2011 by Rex Ryan and Don Yaeger

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www.doubleday.com

  DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

  eISBN: 978-0-385-53445-1

  v3.1

  To my father, Buddy, who taught me so much about football … and taught me how important it was to love the game. I am where I am today because of you.

  And to all the coaches and players who I’ve been so fortunate to work with so far in my career. Your combined talents have allowed me to enjoy a career that is greater than anything I could have imagined.

  — RR

  To Danny Jordan, a mentor in every sense of the word. Thank you for making me better every day.

  — DY

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. 2010 … A Wild Ride

  2. Blunt-Force Trauma

  3. Son of Buddy

  4. Joining the Family Business

  5. Father of My Own

  6. Tackling Dyslexia

  7. Eat, Pray, Football

  8. Loving Baltimore

  9. The Perfect Owner

  10. Changing the Culture of the Jets

  11. Mark Sanchez

  12. Filling Out the Roster

  13. The Perfect Formula

  14. Taking Risks on Players (and Making My Own Mistakes)

  15. Sharing the Big Apple

  16. 2009 Season

  17. Coach-Speak: Getting Up in Front of the Players and Coaches

  18. Hard Knocks

  19. Revis: The Art of the Deal

  20. Bring It On: Putting Pressure on Yourself

  21. Let’s Go Snack

  22. We’ll Be Back

  Acknowledgments

  Photo Insert

  1. 2010 … A Wild Ride

  On January 24, 2010, I looked up from the sidelines at Lucas Oil Stadium and watched the clock tick down to 0:00. The hard realization set in: Our 2009 season, my rookie season as head coach of the New York Jets, was over. The Indianapolis Colts had won the AFC Championship. Losing is brutal—I don’t think anyone can deny that. But some losses, well, they burn a little deeper. As 63,000 fans cheered for the Colts, and their players started putting on their championship hats and T-shirts, I jogged to the middle of the field to shake Jim Caldwell’s hand with only two things on my mind: 1) Damn … Peyton beat me again; and 2) When do I get another shot at him?

  Losing in the AFC Championship was tough enough, but having Peyton Manning take a second Super Bowl ring from me just pissed me off. In 2006, when I was the defensive coordinator with the Baltimore Ravens, we got beat by the Colts in the playoffs. The whole thing just haunts me. Wait, let me rephrase that. Peyton Manning haunts me. In my opinion, simply winning isn’t enough. You have to win against the best, and Peyton Manning is the best. Now, don’t get me wrong, we deserved to lose that 2009 AFC Championship Game. We were outmanned, injuries killing us all over the field during the second half. And no one knows how to abuse your weakness quite like Peyton. But to watch our season end on that note was frustrating, and the only way I knew how to deal with that frustration was to let it drive me. That’s why my first instinct was to imagine how we were going to beat Peyton the next time around … and to envision the Jets, if only in my mind, playing the Colts in the playoffs again.

  My moment to mourn was short and sweet, because the second my hand left Caldwell’s, the 2010 season began and we were 0-0.

  Setting the tone with my Jets in that postgame locker room speech was a huge step toward a new season. Fortunately, it took very little effort. I just went in, was true to myself, and told them exactly what I believed. I told them that the fastest way to kick ourselves in the ass was to go into 2010 with the assumption that we were going to make it to the AFC Championship Game. From that point on, every team was on a level playing field. There were no guarantees. We knew what it felt like to be right there and lose it. That would make us hungrier. We wanted to take it all. I told them to strive to get a home game in the 2010 playoffs. I said let’s play for it again, let’s win it, and let’s do it in our city, at our stadium, in front of our fans. I wanted them to wear their Jets gear and be proud. We finished in the top four in the NFL, we turned an underdog team into an AFC title contender, and we earned the respect and support of the people in New York. I mean, they lit up the Empire State Building green and white the week of the AFC Championship Game. If that didn’t make my players proud to be Jets, then they shouldn’t be on this team.

  The future, I told them right there in the belly of that stadium, came with a challenge. I told the coaches and the players that I was challenging each of them, and myself, to find a way for us to get better. I didn’t know how it was going to happen, but we were going to find a way for each of us to get a little bit better. I knew as a team we were going to have to make some roster improvements. We had to get better in the corner and better in the back end. I also knew it was crucial for us to get a closer as a pass rusher. We needed someone who could close out guys so I wouldn’t have to blitz every snap.

  Coming out of that game and going into the off-season, we went right at those weaknesses to prepare for 2010. We signed Jason Taylor and Antonio Cromartie as free agents. We drafted Joe McKnight, who could help us in both the running and passing game; Kyle Wilson, who I know will be a dynamic player down the road; John Conner, who is an outstanding fullback; and Vladimir Ducasse, who is a dynamite player on the field. We also ended up getting LaDainian Tomlinson, Santonio Holmes, Nick Folk, and Trevor Pryce. We were determined to do everything we could to improve in every way possible. We even picked up Mark Brunell, an 18-year veteran quarterback, who has turned out to be a fantastic mentor to Mark Sanchez.

  Unfortunately, this business is all about give-and-take. So, as excited as I was to get such amazing guys before our 2010 season, I was equally upset to have to let some go. We released Alan Faneca, Thomas Jones, and Marques Douglas, who was one of my guys from Baltimore, and traded Leon Washington to Seattle. That is, by far, the worst part of my job. These guys are truly amazing players and people. If I had it my way I would keep everyone, but that’s just not how it works in the NFL. Every decision is for the betterment of the team.

  With a week or two to go before our 2010 season opener, I was feeling good. We were back in Florham Park after spending training camp at SUNY Cortland, we had officially decided on our 53-man roster, and we had settled some lingering contract negotiations. If you watched us on HBO’s Hard Knocks at the beginning of the season, then I’m sure you’re well aware that two of the contract negotiations I’m talking about were with our cornerback, Darrelle Revis, and our center, Nick Mangold. I’ll get into further detail about this later in the book, but for now, let me just say that compared to the Revis situation, Mangold’s contract was a breeze. Both of these players are great guys, but the way their situations played out was far different. Our owner, Woody Johnson, and our general manager, Mike Tannenbaum, approached Nick about a lucrative seven-year extension, and he signed two weeks later, making him the highest-paid center in the league. On the day he signed, I actually held him out of practice. I mean, we’re talking about a lot of money here! The last thing he needed was to walk out there and fall in a hole with that much on the table.

  Revis, on the other hand, signed a big-time four-year deal after one of the most publicized holdouts in recent NFL history. The day he c
ame back to practice might possibly have been one of the happiest days of my life. I have never wanted something to be over more than that whole ordeal.

  From the very beginning of the season, it seemed like the New York Jets were the most talked-about team in the NFL. A large part of this was due to our appearance on Hard Knocks. Apparently, some people think I’m entertaining. The truth is, I don’t really care what other people have to say about me, including an NFL blogger, a broadcaster, or even a former head coach. I knew Hard Knocks was going to generate interest. Not everyone was going to like it, and that’s fine; that’s what remote controls are for. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t like our name constantly in the press. People were talking about us, and that’s really all that mattered. We were exactly where we wanted to be.

  We put ourselves in a position where we had no other choice but to prove ourselves. I knew people looked at the Jets and me like, “Okay, Rex, we’ve been hearing about you guys all preseason. Now show us what you’ve got.” I felt challenged by all the media attention, and I LOVE a challenge.

  I also don’t mind if the media’s coverage of us isn’t 100 percent positive, but I really don’t like being portrayed as something we definitely are not. We had developed what the media called an “Animal House” image. At first, I think we got this image because people viewed my language on Hard Knocks as offensive, and when they watched the show they thought they saw a team that was all play and no work, a claim I had to defend a million times in the media.

  It really escalated in September 2010 when Inez Sainz, a female reporter for Mexico’s TV Azteca, accused some of the players and coaches, myself included, of acting inappropriately toward her during a visit to one of our practices. The story hit the media on Monday, September 13, and we were exactly one week from opening the season against the Ravens in our new stadium … and this is what I’m dealing with. Now, I could go on for pages and pages about what happened, and what definitely did not happen, but at this point the whole incident has been discussed and dissected, and I don’t think anyone on either side found much to talk about.

  The incident shook me up beyond belief, partially because my name was being dragged into a situation that I hadn’t even witnessed, and partially because we already had the image of being goof-offs because of Hard Knocks, and now we were on the verge of developing a reputation for being jerks, too. It was, honestly, killing me. It was a poor reflection of our football team, and I knew we were just the opposite of that. We always said we wanted to have some real badasses on the field and gentlemen off the field—and that’s what we had. That’s why this whole thing made me madder than hell.

  But in the end this was an example of the kind of distraction you have to expect from out of the blue—these things can either derail you and your team, or you can come together and learn from them.

  The Sainz story began to fade after a few more days, and our full attention was on our home opener. Obviously, if I had to choose an opponent to face while opening up our new stadium and starting our season, I never would have chosen Baltimore. They are an outstanding team with a strong defense that plays with everything they’ve got each and every time they take the field. We are the exact same team. We knew going into it that this would be a competition to see who could play more physically. I thought we would kill them, I really did. We were opening up our new stadium, our fans were so into it, and it was supposed to be a special night; unfortunately, it just never turned out that way.

  The effort we gave was tremendous, but mistakes killed us. It was tough to get beat 10-9, like taking a punch in the stomach. Offensively, we struggled. We were one for 11 on third-down conversions. When you compare that stat alone to Baltimore, who converted 58 percent on third downs, we should have been clobbered. Defensively, we played solid, but penalties cost us. We took pride in playing great, physical defense, but you can’t have 14 penalties and win. You have to play smarter than that.

  Coming out of that long rainy night, the thing we tried to remember is that it was going to be a long season and we could—and would—come back. I had confidence in myself and in our coaches. I knew we were going to get better; the team just had to believe in us.

  I’ve always said that every time we play New England, they’re going to think they are better at two positions: head coach and quarterback. Mark Sanchez and I like to laugh about it, because, honestly, we are matching up against Bill Belichick, one of the best coaches in NFL history and the coach I personally admire the most, and Tom Brady, a quarterback who solidified his spot in the Hall of Fame years ago. Well, that might be true, but it doesn’t stop Mark and me from looking at each other before we play the Patriots and saying, “So what? We can take ’em.” I’ve always said as long as the rest of our team can overcome me as a head coach, and Mark as a quarterback, we should be able to beat New England!

  Turns out I was right in Week 2. A 28-14 victory over the Patriots was big for us, and I was so proud of the true team effort that we gave. This game definitely saved us from drowning in our loss the week before. It proved just how talented this team really is. The only negative coming out of the game was an injury to Darrelle Revis, but when he went down with a pulled hamstring on a touchdown to Randy Moss, we found a way to overcome it. We held Tom Brady to a 72.5 quarterback rating, forcing him to throw two interceptions and six incompletions in a row. Mark had a 124.3 quarterback rating and started what I would say was the beginning of a beautiful relationship with Dustin Keller. There were no individuals on the field that night. We played like a team. That’s what I was most proud of. New England is a great team; everyone knows that. But this night, we were greater.

  We couldn’t make it to our third game of the season before our “Animal House” image was back. On September 22, at 6 A.M., I got a phone call from Mike Tannenbaum telling me that Braylon Edwards had been arrested near the Lincoln Tunnel for a DUI. Like anyone else would be, I was pissed. By that point, I was fed up. I told Braylon and the team that I was tired of dealing with these issues. It’s embarrassing, not just to me, but to our owner. I told the guys that it’s not just about them, that there can be no selfishness on a great football team. They represent a franchise. They wear the logo of that franchise, they wear the colors of that franchise, and every week millions of fans scream for them because they are part of that franchise.

  To do something like get a DUI just blew my mind. We have a Player Protection Program available to these guys to prevent situations like this from happening. Not only did it look bad on the organization that Braylon either wasn’t aware of or chose to ignore the program, but two veteran Jets, D’Brickashaw Ferguson and Vernon Gholston, were in the car with him. I was so tired of the Jets carrying around this stigma that we’re just a group of thugs. I had worked long and hard since my first day on the job to improve what people thought about the Jets. I wasn’t going to let the carelessness of a few guys ruin it, and I made sure they knew that.

  Once time passed, I was able to calm down a little from the whole thing. I am able to see now that in the long run this may have been the best thing that could have happened to Braylon. He’s really a good kid, and while it’s disappointing what happened to him, sometimes you just have to take the consequences like a man.

  I truly thought he had been embarrassed enough. My only punishment was choosing to sit him out for the first quarter against Miami. I heard every opinion possible about my decision. Some people criticized me by saying that being benched for one quarter isn’t a punishment, that I don’t know how to discipline or control my team. Most people said they would have suspended him from the team right then. I just don’t work that way. I think we all mess up at some point in our lives. Now, I’m not going to let someone walk all over me, but I’m not going to turn my back on him either. Braylon was paying for his mistakes, whether the media knows it or not.

  As we approached the next game, I decided to share my personal math formula with the team. Basically, I look at every divisional game a
s if it counts as a game and a half—which means our third game down in Miami could either put us up half a game or down two and a half. I know it’s not everyday math, but it works for us. My point is that the game against the Dolphins in Miami was not just a normal regular-season game. For us, it was huge. There is a history there.

  The fact that we were 0-2 against them in 2009 is still a burr in my saddle. And on top of that, you may have heard about a minor issue I had with a couple of fans at the Pro Bowl last year, which of course made front-page news in Miami and New York. I’ll get back to that.

  Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly expecting the stadium to give me a standing ovation when I took the field in Miami. Given our past, I wanted to play so hard and so tough that we’d absolutely kill them. In the end it was a bittersweet victory. I was excited that we walked out with a 31-23 win, but I wanted more from my guys. Our defense allowed 463 yards. That stat alone killed me. This game was sort of personal for me because of the relationship I’ve built with Jason Taylor, who had an amazing career with the Dolphins. The truth is he never wanted to leave Miami; they let him go. Fortunately for us, their loss was our gain in 2010.

  Jason’s an unbelievable guy. He came to New York, into our building, and immediately became one of the guys. He had the best attitude and was so humble. Our victory over Miami was a memorable conquest for him. Knowing how special it was, at the end of the game I dumped the Gatorade jug on him. It was the first time a coach had ever done that to a player. It was my own tribute to him, and one that he fully deserved.

  After returning to New York and before heading to Buffalo for our fourth game, we made some minor adjustments to our roster. We released veteran Howard Green and signed Trevor Pryce. In the time I was with Baltimore, Trevor averaged a quarterback hit for every 10 snaps taken—not 10 passes, 10 snaps. The minute we heard the Ravens had released him, we saw it as an opportunity for us. A lot of people questioned why I would “violate” some apparent unspoken rule in the NFL not to sign a player that another team releases with the intention that it plans to make him active again. I must have been sleeping in Transactions 101, because apparently I missed this rule. To me, that’s part of the game. We released Howard Green and went after Trevor Pryce. That’s the risk you take. In my opinion, you don’t cut a guy as the Ravens did and roll the dice.