Casey At The Bat: Ryan and Jets more frat house than NFL team
"Quite honestly, I'm basically tired of dealing with these issues. I'm tired of the embarrassment to our owner and this organization. Let's just end it. Let's just stop. However severe or minor, we don't need to be that team."
Those are words of Jets head coach Rex Ryan after wide receiver Braylon Edwards was arrested for DWI early Tuesday morning in Manhattan. Edwards' car, with reportedly two of his teammates inside, was stopped for illegal tinting before police officers smelled alcohol on Edwards' breath.
Ryan had a meeting with his team, and the coach told them that he is tired of the "frat-house behavior." He should have a look in the mirror because the frat-house behavior started with the man in charge.
It would be one thing if this was the first incident for the Jets this season, but it isn't. As a matter of fact, it all started earlier this year with Ryan flipping off fans at an MMA event in Miami during Super Bowl week that cost him $50,000 in fines.
The Jets took a lot of heat for acquiring guys with off-the-field issues such as Santonio Holmes, Antonio Cromartie and Edwards, who came to the club with some legal baggage left over from his days in Cleveland.
Add to that the locker-room incident with Ines Sainz, a female reporter from a Mexican TV network, who claims she was subject to inappropriate behavior by some Jets players and coaches. The NFL obviously felt something that wasn't right took place as the league made Jets owner Woody Johnson foot the bill for a league-wide media training program.
When you look at the HBO NFL reality show "Hard Knocks," there are several things that jump out at viewers. One was, front and center, the language used by Ryan. He used the F-bomb so much it made me uncomfortable, and it was frowned upon by many of his peers in the coaching fraternity. Then you had players eating cheeseburgers on the field during a practice, after which Rex ripped into his team. It has to be alarming to Jets fans and front-office brass that the players felt like it was OK to do that. Several observers also pointed to Jason Taylor and his episodes of getting lost and showing up late to practices.
Ryan has always been a talker, and he has made no secret that he thinks his team is going to the Super Bowl, and that they are going to step on everyone that gets in their way. He also went as far as to take some shots at Ray Lewis and the rest of the Ravens in the week leading up to their Monday Night Football game. That night, Ryan's "very disciplined team" committed 14 penalties which helped lead to a loss to the Ravens.
The spotlight is shining bright on the Jets: new stadium, big offseason moves, a reality show on HBO, team in a huge media market, the head coach is a media quote machine, a brash bunch of players and a wild-west mentality on and off the field. But that spotlight also shines in places that Jets' ownership and management wished it didn't.
Ryan won't start Edwards on Sunday, but he will play -- which to me is no punishment at all. If Ryan was serious about sending a real message to his team, then Edwards would sit on the bench in sweats and a cap, and not in uniform.
The Jets starring role in "Hard Knocks" is like a movie. We were introduced to the characters at the beginning, we picked the ones we could identify with and the NFL season is the plot. How will it play out? Will the Jets capture a Super Bowl trophy to fulfill their promise to be kings of the football world?
As we wait to find out the dramatic conclusion, I have a strong feeling that the ending will not turn out the way Ryan says. Instead of being the heroes who ride off into the sunset, the Jets may wind up as the beaten villans behind bars.
