I Like Rex Ryan.\u00a0 But there were times during this year\u2019s disappointing campaign that I wasn\u2019t sure I did.\u00a0 His sidelines at times appeared chaotic, he needs to improve his game and clock management skills, and most obviously, he must be better tuned in to the psyche of the players in his locker-room.\u00a0 But these are skills, and skills can be developed and improved.\u00a0 Most coaches achieve greatness because of something beyond skill, something less tangible.\u00a0 They have an innate quality that only exists in great leaders of men, to get the most out of each individual, sharing the virtue of suffering, sacrificing personal achievement for team success.\u00a0 Coach Rex Ryan can be that leader.\u00a0\u00a0 It is clear after three seasons with the Jets, his players will lay it on the line for him.\u00a0 The recognition of the exceptions and the taking of swift and decisive action is when true leadership emerges.<\/p>\n
I first thought about this when I read that Patriot\u2019s Head Coach Bill Belichick made rookie Stevan Ridley inactive for the AFC Championship game against the Baltimore Ravens.\u00a0 In a 45-10 victory over the Denver Broncos, Ridley fumbled in the third quarter.\u00a0 Who would even notice a fumble in a game so dominated by the Patriots?\u00a0 Coach Belichick took notice and action as Ridley didn\u2019t see the field again that day and perhaps the rest of the year.\u00a0 When you consider how many carries Ridley was getting for a team not very deep at running back, Coach Belichick\u2019s message was loud and clear, achieve greatness or stay home.<\/p>\n
Looking back on the New York Jets season there were plenty of opportunities to send this same message, most notably perhaps with Matt Mulligan.\u00a0 When you consider penalties, poor blocking, and a sideline argument with RB coach Anthony Lynn, a missed opportunity by Rex to make a huge statement of Mulligan\u2019s inability to achieve greatness, could have put the rest of the team on notice.\u00a0 Leadership is having the courage to make unpopular decisions.\u00a0 When you stand at a podium and insist you are good enough to win a Super Bowl but allow mediocrity in the locker room, it\u2019s not talent holding the team back, it is a lack of genuine leadership.<\/p>\n
When comparing the two coaches, Ryan and Belichick, there is one huge difference.\u00a0 Coach Ryan wants to live up to his label of a \u201cplayer\u2019s coach\u201d, to be liked by his players and they in turn will play hard.\u00a0 It\u2019s a \u201cwhen they feel good they will play well\u201d philosophy.\u00a0 Coach Belichick has never sought the \u201cplayer\u2019s coach\u201d label and he demands greatness out of everyone, all the time.\u00a0 It\u2019s a \u201cplay well and you will feel good\u201d philosophy.<\/p>\n
Ironically in the end, both coaches are liked by their players, but for right now many players who like Belichick, have rings on their fingers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I Like Rex Ryan.\u00a0 But there were times during this year\u2019s disappointing campaign that I wasn\u2019t sure I did.\u00a0 His sidelines at times appeared chaotic, he needs to improve his game and clock management skills, and most obviously, he must be better tuned in to the psyche of the players in his locker-room.\u00a0 But these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-featured-editorials"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-2KI","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10585,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10584\/revisions\/10585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}