Bill Belichick might not know what the “Patriot Way” is, but Rex Ryan seems to — and he sure hates it.
Ryan, the former New York Jets and Buffalo Bills head coach, spent the better part of his head coaching career getting his teeth kicked in by Belichick and the Patriots. So it probably should come as no surprise that Ryan ended up getting a little ticked off by the whole Patriots operation in Foxboro over the years.
“Your mentality is, you have to go in there like you’re in a fistfight,” Ryan told ESPN.com. “That has to be your mentality. I used to tell our guys, ‘Don’t take any crap off those guys. None. I don’t care what that means. By any means necessary'”
That didn’t always work, of course, as Ryan went just 4-12 in the regular season vs. the Patriots in seven years as a head coach. But it wasn’t just the lack of success that irked Ryan.
“You know what ticked me off is they thought they were better than us, not just as a team, but they thought they were doing something special, they were a better organization,” Ryan said.
(The Patriots, mind you, have won six Super Bowls in the last 20 years.)
“That pissed me off, man. The Patriot Way. I was like, the Jet Way is to beat the hell out of you.”
(The Jets, while they did once beat the Patriots in the playoffs, never got past the AFC Championship Game and missed the playoffs in four of Ryan’s six seasons.)
The current version of the Jets faces a tall task this week when they have to go to Gillette Stadium with their third-string quarterback as 22-point underdogs Sunday.
The Jet Way, indeed.
