Rex Ryan loved nothing more than beating the New England Patriots as head coach of the New York Jets.
The former coach of the Jets and Buffalo Bills now works as an analyst for ESPN, and he discussed his coaching tenure in New York on “The Dan Le Batard Show” on Thursday.
Ryan was recalling his happiest football memories, including which win over the Patriots meant the most.
While some might think the Jets’ win over the Patriots in the divisional round of the 2010 AFC playoffs takes the cake, they would be mistaken.
Ryan explained that while that win was huge, he believes the “craziest” win of his Jets’ career was the first time New York beat New England in Week 2 of 2009.
“I loved coaching the Jets,” Ryan said. “And yeah, there were some big wins. But my biggest win — it’s easy to point to when we beat New England in the playoffs or whatever to get to AFC Championship Game for the second year. But that was huge, and no question that was great. But I think the biggest win I had as a Jet coach, like the funnest and the craziest, was my first year when we beat New England Week 2.
“Because I think that kind of gave a fanbase something that, hey, this is not the same old Jets.”
Ryan loved the win because of how New York was able to beat the rival Patriots.
“And even though it was early in the season, the way we did it too, I think they we went 12 straight zero blitzes to end the game. Twelve straight. I think that was more of the, it just sent a message that we were a different team and we kind of flipped it overnight. That was kind of the mentality. I think we followed that up with three straight losses.”
The Jets actually won their next game to move to 3-0, and then followed that up with three straight losses.
But Ryan always will have that Week 2 win.
