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Is Rex Ryan the Jerry Glanvill eof the New Millenium? Watching the Jets train wreck is remarkably similar ot the trajectory we had with Glanville. Kind of fun at first and then all the huffing and puffing burns everyone out and you realize there just isn't much of a plan besides try to out emotionalize every team you play. Doesn't work. MNF tonight was pathetic. Be thankful we have a cerebral, low key coach instead of a carnival barker. I will say Jerry was fun in 91.

The Jets are lacking a major piece of the puzzle... A QB. That they made the trade for Tebow is all that you need to know about that organization.

I think Rex is a solid coach. I think personnel are their major issues. They just have not done a good job building up their offensive personnel. Making their bed with Sanchez, not a good idea. Making their bed with Shonn Greene, not a good idea. Santonio Holmes, not a good idea.

Trust me, if Mike Smith was coaching those Jets teams, they wouldn't be much better.

You never give Smith enough credit at his long view handling of the team, Pudge. How about this? Do you think the Falcons would be where they are with Rex as HC? I don't. The Ryans are coordinators and lack the people and PR skills to be top banana. The trade for Tebow was goofy. The way they used him last night was goofy multiplied by five. When Rex first got there all the players with brains in their dicks said they wanted to play for him because of his swagger and all that. You don't hear that now and year after year they have locker room problems. It is hard to maintain respect for a banty roster strutting around in the hen yard like king of the world.

Watching last nights game its easy to see that Sanchez was never really the duck's nuts. He just had a dominating defense and a very good running game and both of those have been in steady decline since the second AFC Championship appearance. The more they put on his plate the worse he looks. Not to take any of the deserved blame from the front office they started Braylon Edwards, Mardy Gilyard, and Clyde Gates last night and Jeff Cumberland was the most targeted recieving option in the offense. With that cast of recieving option anything less than Brady, Manning, or Brees you are not going to have success throwing the ball. I mean Gilyard is a special teamer Gates was cut by the Dolphins a team that needs help at WR and Edwards is washed up. Rex Ryan is a good coordinator and his defense although not as highly regarded as it once was still did its except for the 94 yard hiccup. Rex Ryan is a good coach but the combonation of him and Tannebaum is not working I dont know if Tannebaum is a push over or what but what GM would go defense with every 1st round pick and just flat out ignore the offensive side of the ball?

I didn't say Rex would do as good a job in Atlanta as Smith said. I'm only saying that Smith would only do as good as Rex does in New York if he had Sanchez for QB.

Ryan is a very defensive-minded head coach, so much so that he tries to win games defensively, ignoring the offense. That has been an obvious problem for the Jets. Instead of trying to build up an offense that could compete at the highest levels, they've been trying to make due to with the bare minimum.

But I don't think that makes Rex a bad coach, just not perfect. If he had the right QB, right GM, right OC, there would nothing wrong with that approach (see the 49ers/Ravens). But he doesn't have those things. Sanchez is a 4th tier QB, Tannenbaum has done a piss-poor job managing their roster, and they've always had OCs that were just OK.

Rex is not for everybody, but neither is Tony Dungy and he'd probably be the polar opposite of Rex.

If I'm Woody Johnson, and I'm looking at my trifecta (QB-HC-GM), then the head coach IMO is the least of the problems.

The Jets season fell apart when Darrelle Revis, their franchise player, went down with an injury. If Smith lost his franchise guy (Ryan), then he wouldn't have that much more success. Would it look as sloppy as the Jets look? No, probably not. But at the end of the day, the Falcons would be lucky to be staring at a 6-8 record at this point in the year in such circumstances.

It's really no different with Reeves back when the team lost Jamal. What ensued was not really a reflection of Reeves' coaching ability, it all came down to his crappiness as a GM. He was a terrible GM, just like Tannenbaum.

But I tend to be more personnel-centric, and think teams tend to reflect the level of their talent, not the level of their coaching. There are plenty of weak/bad coaches that underachieve (Romeo Crennel, Wade Phillips, Ron Rivera). But I don't think anybody would say that at any point in the last 4 years that the Jets have underachieved. So that to me says that they are well-coached, just like the Falcons who consistently overachieve as well.

I really disagree. My brother is a Jets fan and a nascent sports writer and he cannot wait to get rid of Ryan.

As it was said above, Ryan was a good DC but lacks the presence to be an effective HC. Simply put, he's not very charismatic or intelligent in his handling of people. I would agree that this is certainly exacerbated by the personnel issues, but it's not like he has no input in these things. Had he come in and made a "sea change" like Coughlin did after he lost the Giants' locker room, I'd agree that he isn't the problem. However, he didn't and is still the same blustery loud-mouth that he was at the time of his hire. That type of leadership doesn't attract strong followers and certainly doesn't develop them on the team. We've seen Bart Scott degrade, Snchize never develop and Holmes completely s*** the bed. Have we ever seen anything remotely similar from the Falcons under Smith? To some extent you have to give Smith credit for the professional approach that the team (minus Roddy, at times) takes towards the game. How many wins does that add up to? That's a tough call, but I cannot see totally discounting it.

The Fireman Ed thing may seem unrelated, but it goes to the atmosphere that the Jets project right now. Fans certainly shouldn't be calling the shots, but you'd be nuts to ignore their place in the gestalt of the team. Pioli clearly needs to go in KC, and Ryan needs to go in NY. Not because the fans say so, but because of the effect they have on the fans.

I would humbly suggest that if a CB is your franchise player you are in trouble. We've been there--with Glanville. Leadership is such a delicate science and I probably have not paid as much attention to it as I have in the past few years. I was always of the give me characters who can play over players with character but I have made a sea change. As the cliche goes, Rex may not be the problem in NY but he damn sure isn't the solution. What can you really say about a guy whose wife puts foot fetish videos on youtube?

I don't want to make it sound like I am comparing Mike Smith and Rex Ryan. I'm just saying that the Jets problems go beyond the coaching of the team, and they lie largely in the personnel department, IMHO.

One of the reasons why we haven't seen these things happen in Atlanta is because the Falcons putting a premium on football character. Even though I crap on TD quite a bit, I do think he's light years better Tannenbaum.

The Jets problems started when they made their bed with Sanchez. Now, I don't necessarily fault them for that because I too thought Sanchez was going to be a really good NFL QB. That initial mistake has been compounded by other personnel mistakes, such as rewarding Holmes with a $50 million contract, the Tebow trade, making their bed with Shonn Greene at RB, failing to replace Damien Woody at RT, bad/lacking investment in pass rushers, etc.

Again, I'm not absolving Rex of blame in making those decisions as I'm sure he had his fair share of input on many/all of them. But ultimately the personnel decisions aren't his responsibility. They are the GMs, and thus fall at the feet of Mike Tannenbaum.

The lack of leadership there I think has a lot to do with personnel. Rex came in, brought in Bart Scott, Jim Leonhard, and had Shaun Ellis. Having an O-line anchored by Mangold, Faneca, Brandon Moore, Damien Woody.

Not many is left from that group.

Not to take anything from Smitty, but he is greatly aided by having a franchise QB like Matt Ryan. The comparison to what it's like with Sanchez is basically as if he had decided to stick with Chris Redman (like many Falcon fans wanted) and drafted Glenn Dorsey in 2008. Roddy would be significantly different player today if he didn't have Ryan. There's no Tony Gonzalez trade, no Julio Jones trade. There's no inheriting John Abraham or Jonathan Babineaux, or if he did (in this comparison, they would represent Ellis), they would be gone after his 2nd season.

Again, the Jets have focused on accumulating talent not leadership. Antonio Cromartie, Holmes, etc. are players in key positions on their roster, and they all have zero character. It would be like the equivalent if the Falcons had opted to keep DeAngelo Hall back in '08 rather than kicking him out the door.

There was a house-cleaning in Atlanta when TD & Smitty came in. There wasn't really one in New York. And what has been has been paced out over the past 4 years.

Now you can get on Rex Ryan for lacking the leadership to make up for this difference. But I think it's easy to say, this guy is a great leader when he has a good locker room. It's easy to say Smitty's leadership is great because he has guys like Ryan, Gonzo, etc. and a wealth of guys that put winning first as opposed to being me-first players. Those guys didn't simply "adopt" Smitty's attitude

Do I think Smitty is a better leader than Rex? Yes. But I don't believe that whatever leadership he possesses is going to inspire the likes of Santonio or Cromartie to be dramatically different and better players/leaders. I don't believe Sanchez is going to suddenly become a good decision and accurate passer because Smitty is a great leader. I don't think Smitty's leadership is going to make up for the huge void opened by losing arguably the best defensive player in the NFL. I don't think Smitty can lead a group helmed by Aaron Maybin, Vernon Gholston, Calvin Pace, and Bryan Thomas to be good pass rushers.

I think what you have in New York is a clusterfudge of bad personnel decisions, that are compound any shortcomings Rex Ryan may have. But I believe if you had that many personnel decisions anywhere, whether it was Vince Lombardi or Belichick running the team, you're not going to see dramatically better results.

The fact that the Jets were still in playoff contention in Week 14 despite losing their best player, and having arguably one of the 3 worst QBs in the league IMHO is actually an indicator of how good a coach Rex is.

But if I'm Woody Johnson, I'm thinking I definitely need a QB, and a new GM. New coach? Meh. If the new GM is adamant that Rex must go, then so be it. But I'd be looking to salvage that if possible.

Did the same GM who drafted and signed all those players hire Ryan?

Does Ryan have little-to-no input on the decisions to get and keep these guys?

My brother's take: