Hard-Nosed, Hard-Headed: Why a Certain New Head Coach Is Doomed to Fail

You know the chant. You know the sing-song cadence and the mockery that it espouses. You know the rhythmic clapping that follows it and fills it out so nicely:

“O!-Ver!-Ra!-Ted!” *clap clap clap-clap-clap*

This chant could be directed at any number of people in the NFL, but there’s one in particular that I’d like to focus on here. Interestingly enough, from most of what I’ve read and heard this person doesn’t seem to be getting the “credit” he deserves in this particular area, so allow me to (re)open the conversation.

I’m pointing my finger at you. Yes you, Rex Ryan. You of the NFL pedigree and the blustery bravado. You who claims that you’ll bring the pressure all the time and create havoc on opposing offenses. This all sounds very familiar…possibly because your father said the same thing years ago.

Now, for the most part, I’m not questioning Rex’s ability as a defensive coordinator (that “for the most part” caveat will be returned to later). He learned the game from his father and by plying his trade in college and the pros and won a Super Bowl ring with the Ravens in 2000. He was not, however, the defensive coordinator; that honor belonged to Marvin Lewis.

Under Lewis, the Ravens ranked 2^nd overall in the NFL in total defense (after the Tennessee Titans) after giving up a ludicrous 165 total points during the regular season and holding opponents to 970 yards in total rushing, which equates to around 10 points and 61 yards per game; if you’ve ever been a defensive coordinator, you know that those totals are worthy of high praise. As defensive line coach, no doubt Rex Ryan had a lot to do with his team’s successes.

After Lewis left to be the defensive coordinator for the Washington Redskins (and later the head coach of the Bengals), Mike Nolan took over and kept the Ravens’s defense dominant before leaving to take the head job in San Francisco. Enter Ryan, who…kept the Ravens’s defense dominant before leaving to take the head job with the Jets.

Sound like a pattern? It should. Someone steps up to call the Ravens’ defense and that someone does a good job. It doesn’t matter who it is. One more thing: whoever that someone is goes on to get a head coaching job and pretty much bombs. Lewis has treaded water in Cincinnati, while Nolan was fired from San Francisco. Why should we believe that Rex Ryan will succeed, especially in such a heavily scrutinized market as New York? We shouldn’t.

So many times in college football analysts and talking heads discuss certain players as “system players” (i.e. Colt Brennan, Ken Dorsey, the myriad quarterbacks at Texas Tech). So then, perhaps there is such a phenomenon in the NFL as a “system coach” who is more a caretaker than a coordinator. Rex Ryan fits this mold perfectly, stepping in the role of those who came before him and keeping the engines going as strong as ever. Well…perhaps.

This brings me back to the “for the most part” statement from earlier. One of the key elements of being a head coach is knowing how to be a good game manager and knowing what to call and at what time. That being said, has any “great” coach ever had such a massive case of brain lock as Rex Ryan did against the Patriots in 2007? The Patriots were down to their final drive of the game to preserve their perfect season, and Ryan responded to this pressure–with his stellar defensive unit–by 1) forgetting how to bring his vaunted pressure and 2) calling an infamous late timeout on 4^th down that negated a Ravens stop; on the ensuing play, the Patriots converted and went on to win.

So, what we’re looking at here is a highly respected defensive coach who prides himself on being aggressive, nasty, and violent but when the chips are down he can’t always get the win. If that seems familiar it’s because Rex’s father Buddy was the same way as a head coach: hard-headed, brash and verbose, threatening in words but not necessarily in deeds. Buddy Ryan’s defenses were dominant as a head coach, but his career record was 55-55-1. Coaching for seven years in the NFC East, Buddy’s dominant defense won the division exactly once.

With Rex showing the same characteristics early on as his father, why are we to assume that he will be any different as a head coach? It has been said that offense wins games but defense wins championships; nowhere in there does it say that defense necessarily wins games. Ryan has talked about how his defense will play but has seemingly forgotten that his offense looks suspect at best.

His quarterbacks are unproven and his wide receivers are non-existent. His running game, with a decent set of backs and a very good offensive line, looks to be in decent shape but without a respectable passing game opposing defenses will load up on him. That means his defense will need to swarm extra hard, and it means that Rex will need to show that he can coach his guys up. I have my doubts. He did no better, no worse as defensive coordinator in Baltimore than his predecessors, none of which have done much as a head coaches. 

Here’s saying that neither will Rex Ryan.