Keidel: Rex Ryan Is Running Out Of Goodwill And Spiraling Into A Clown
By Jason Keidel
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Rex Ryan has enough going on without the hubris and hyperbole.
IK Enemkpali is Exhibit A. The infamous former Jet who shattered Geno Smith's jaw this summer is being trotted out Thursday night as a surreal captain of Ryan's Buffalo Bills.
While Ryan asserts he always honors his guys against their former teams, this isn't about honor or honesty as much as jamming a symbolic shank into the flank of his former team.
As WFAN host Boomer Esiason said this morning, Ryan is great for the sport, a kind of comic-book beacon for pro football. During his weekly presser, he ambled out to the dais donning a Clemson helmet, extolling the virtues of his son's school. He's also worn a wig to mimic his brother, burned a Mark Sanchez tattoo into his meaty leg, filmed a foot fetish video and promised myriad Super Bowls for Gang Green -- and never made good on one of them.
Then Ryan said the pregame ritual was "not a slap in anyone's face." He really said that. Surely the semantics weren't lost on him. It reminds you of Greg Hardy's desire to come out "guns blazing" before a recent game, entirely aware of his sprawling rap sheet which describes tossing a woman onto a bonfire of assault weapons. (I'm not comparing the two men or their transgressions; just the woeful words they chose.)
It's all part of his familiar, Big Apple narrative -- talk his way into our hearts, then out of his mind. Though in the embryonic stages of his current gig, this has all the hallmarks of a predictable arc as a head coach, and the resounding sense that he's an embellished D-Coordinator in a head coach's headset.
Moments after stomping the Colts in Week 1, Ryan was heralded as the next Marv Levy -- if not Vince Lombardi -- here to save the beleaguered Bills, who were inches from fleeing to Los Angeles before a homegrown billionaire floated down from the financial clouds to rescue them. Then the Pegula family hired Ryan, who was as bold and biting as the Buffalo wind.
Beyond the obvious incentives of proximity and rivalry -- Buffalo is, really, the only one of the three NY teams to actually practice and play in New York -- you have the former Jets coach now coaching the Bills, and a former Bills coach who came incredibly close to coaching the Jets. Doug Marrone, who seemed to be guiding the Bills on a playoff arc, stunned the team and town when he opted out of his contract at the end of last season.
Then, after the rumor mill churned out the assumption that he would assume the helm for Gang Green, he wound up with no NFL head coaching gig, and has since returned -- tail between his vocational legs -- down to Jacksonville, to lead the offensive line of the 2-7 Jaguars.
So suffice it to say that this Thursday night game is stuffed with drama. Add Ryan's resume and rhetoric, and it's a powder keg. Expect an extra elbow or two, if not a flag or five, during an ornery first half. And if the Jets beat the Bills -- which they're favored to do -- expect another theatrical postgame presser couched with endless excuses, platitudes about attitudes, and how proud he is of his team's heart and Buffalo's blue-collar ethic.
For all of Ryan's theatrics, he's running out of goodwill. He's quickly draining his street cred and spiraling into a clown. This Bills club wasn't branded a rebuilding job, some Homeric journey back to Jim Kelly. Indeed, the Bills defense was largely regarded as the most talented in the NFL. And since defense is the soil under Ryan's family tree, we expected commensurate results -- not the team gashed for 40 points by the Patriots. Not the team that yielded 34 points to the Bengals. And surely not the team that hemorrhaged 34 points to the lowly Jaguars.
The Bills had lost three out of four games before thumping the Dolphins last week to even their record at 4-4. But Ryan doesn't pine for .500 results and doesn't act like a .500 coach. Even if his bio suggests that's exactly what he is. After taking the Jets to two AFC title games, his act seemed to have worn on the media and the masses, his blowhard refrain clouding his judgement and cloaking his real record.
Ryan is so charismatic, such a refreshing character among the sterile suits that make up the NFL aristocracy that you're willing to overlook his less elegant moments, his distasteful jokes and his epic arsenal of F-Bombs.
But no road show can mask your results. The NFL has long doubled as the acronym, "Not For Long." When you don't produce, you'll be picking produce from the local farmer's market instead of feasting on regal, NFL buffets. And, as we know, the Ryan boys just love a large, hot supper.
Ryan is large, lives large and lives for the limelight. But at a certain point the light doesn't love you back. It reveals the wrinkles in your face and in your game. Buffalo is thrilled to have its Bills back in the fold, for good.
But nothing lasts forever. And though the honeymoon with the owner is in full bloom, it may not be long before the bloom wears off the Rex Ryan rose.
Follow Jason on Twitter @JasonKeidel.
