Whether Jets head coach Rex Ryan realizes it or not, all that talking kind of takes its toll. The Jets were really good talkers, sometimes in a yada-yada-yada kind of way. Ryan and his guys talked so much they gave those ladies on The View a run for their money. Even Joy (there's no key to turn off my mouth) Behar can't compete with the likes of Rex, but then again she doesn't have to go out on a field and prove something every week the way he does, so it is kind of funny when Joy goes off, but not so much when Rex does.
Ryan talked a good talk all season (and even during the preseason on the HBO series Hard Knocks), but in the end all the swagger kind of caught up with him and the team. You can just get by so long on being verbose when you have to throw or run a football.
What did the Jets in yesterday was a combination of too much sound and not enough fury. The great writer William Shakespeare wrote about a tale told by an idiot that was full of sound and fury but signified nothing. In essence these words from Macbeth can be applied to Ryan, who strove to take the castle and then the kingdom, but forgot that words are fine in dramas but not as important on the playing field.
If Jets fans weren't ready to pack it in at the half (when their team was down 24-3), it is only because we have seen it all before. It's the old Tug McGraw "You gotta believe" mentality, and we Jets fans as well as Mets fans have been suckered by the concept of being the underdog and loving it. Well, as good old Maxwell Smart (played by Don Adams on the great television show Get Smart) used to say, "Missed it by that much." We go home and they move forward and that's that.
Article comments
1 - Alan Kurtz
Isn't it true that underlying all the talk is a sense of entitlement? Diehard fans, yourself included, believe that New York deserves to win the championship every season in whatever sport because, well, it's New York! Small wonder that Coach Ryan and his players get suckered into this Big Apple delusion. Even less wonder that, when it doesn't work out the way you drew it up, we outsiders gloat at your comeuppance. As your article points out, hubris can be a bitch when you don't back it up.
2 - Victor Lana
Yes, you're right, Alan. If you saw the post game news conference, Ryan was talking like a man who lost but still couldn't believe it.