Watch CBS News

Palladino: Pucker Up, Rexy — Time To Admit Belichick Won The War

By Ernie Palladino
» More Ernie Palladino Columns

When Rex Ryan took over as Jets head coach in 2009, one of his first of many bombastic pronouncements was that he had not come here to kiss Bill Belichick's Super Bowl rings.

While that unwholesome-sounding ceremony was never formalized, poor Rex may well end up smooching something just south of Belichick's bejeweled hand Sunday afternoon. Unless Woody Johnson proves predictions about his coach's continued employment totally off the mark, the home finale against the AFC East champion Patriots (again) will mark his final opportunity to beat a coach he both admires and envies.

It probably won't happen. In fact, this could well turn into an early rout, since Belichick allowing a divisional weakling to duplicate the 27-25 near-miss of Oct. 16 is just as likely as a Christmas temperature reading of 90.

Unless Ryan's gallant players pull off a major surprise, the coach will wind up with a 4-9 mark against Belichick, his only real success coming in his second season when he went 2-1 en-route to his second AFC Championship game. He beat the Pats 28-21 in Gillette Stadium in the Jan. 2011 divisional round, after which Pats wide receiver Deion Branch called the Jets' postgame celebration "classless."

Since then, the Pats have ripped off a 6-1 streak, the Jets' only win coming in overtime last October.

Keep in mind, the Pats have done this to plenty of teams. Eleven AFC East titles in 12 years don't happen from breaking even in the division. But neither Buffalo nor Miami had the audacity to talk about kissing rings and kicking rear ends.

When a coach throws out bulletin board material like that, it can't help but give his opponent an inordinate thrill in beating him. Preferably, said opponent would administer a beat-down to the tune of the 49-19 Thanksgiving night runaway, a win made even more cranberry dressing-delicious with Mark Sanchez's "Butt Fumble."

Belichick would never admit that Ryan's comments irked him. It's hard enough to get the stoic coach to talk about his own team, let alone salvos from afar. All he ever did was put his head down, pore over his game tapes, and prepare a better game plan.

There might have been a bit of luck involved, too, as in that blocked field goal that deprived the Jets of a huge upset Oct. 16 on the final play. But that doesn't show up in the final score.

Fact is, there never was any real butt-kicking from Ryan.

Where he once thought championship flags would fly over MetLife Stadium, he now looks up at practice and sees planes flying overhead and no doubt offers silent thanks that the banners they pull are directed not at him, but at general manager John Idzik.

He might even look at social media now and then, and perhaps he caught his owner's "inadvertent" favoriting of a tweet imploring him to fire the embattled GM.

Ryan once thought he would pound Belichick into subservience. Instead, Belichick has bloodied Ryan's teams.

Yet Ryan remains unbowed.

"I might be the only one who had the guts to say something about it," Ryan said this week. "But that's how I am, and that's how I feel this week, too."

Ever defiant, that's Ryan.

But the scoreboard Sunday may say that it is time, finally, as Ryan heads toward the exit, for him to admit that his arch-rival truly got the better of him.

If he didn't kiss anything before, he might as well do it now.

And we're not talking about rings here.

You May Also Be Interested In These Stories

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.