Matthews: Choosing Ryan was a spectacular catch

When the Jets decided to replace the laconic (Eric Mangini) with the loquacious (Rex Ryan), they thought they knew what they were getting: big personality, big talker. And, according to his resume, big-play defense.

But it didn't take long for the Jets to discover that in Ryan, they had gotten more than they bargained for.

One of his first moves after being hired as coach last January was to look around the Jets' brand-spanking-new, $75-million facility in Florham Park, N.J. - and promptly announce that training camp would take place about 200 miles away in Cortland, N.Y.

"[Owner] Woody Johnson and I just rolled our eyes,'' general manager Mike Tannenbaum said Monday. "But it turned out to be a great decision.''

Next, Ryan laid out his media policy for his new team: Everyone was to talk to the media, and every time a player spoke to a reporter, he was to mention at least one teammate in a positive light.

As Tannenbaum said: "Last year, if we had 50 players, we had 50 cars in the parking lot. This year, it's the same 50 players, but only 25 cars. That's the way Rex wanted it.''

In his first year, Ryan has done a lot of things no other Jets coach, and few head coaches of any NFL team, had ever done.

Halfway through the season, he cried in front of his players after a tough loss. Then he joked about it by producing a box of tissues at his weekly news conference. Think Bill Parcells would have done that?

A week later, he had his rookie quarterback, Mark Sanchez, wear color-coded wristbands on the field to remind him not to hand the football over to the other team. Think Bill Belichick would have done that, or admitted it even if he had?

And two weeks ago, dispirited by a loss to the Atlanta Falcons, he committed the coach's Mortal Sin, pronouncing his team's playoff chances dead when any fantasy football geek could have told you they still were very much alive. Think Mangini would have done that?

Clearly, the Ryan Express has turned out to be a wilder ride than the Jets ever could have imagined, and a much more enjoyable one than even Tannenbaum and Johnson could have hoped for.

And starting Saturday in Cincinnati, Ryan has a chance to take the Jets where Parcells and Mangini were unable to bring them and where Belichick was unwilling even to try.

After Ryan cried, his team didn't quit on him. It stood up for him, going 5-2 the rest of the way, including must-win games over division champs Indianapolis and Cincinnati in Weeks 16 and 17.

After Ryan, a self-proclaimed defensive guru, took a more active role in the offense, the Jets outscored their opponents 135-47 in the last six games and Sanchez stopped giving the ball away.

And after Ryan proclaimed his team dead, they roared to life. They now stand only three wins - three improbable wins, to be sure, but hardly impossible - from their first Super Bowl since 1969.

Considering the way things have gone for them so far, don't be so sure they won't make it. They're good, they're hot and they're reasonably healthy.

And even if they don't, the Jets are going to be a tough out for anyone for as long as they go this month.

Meanwhile, the other football team in town, the one led by the prototype for the no-nonsense, all-discipline, never-shed-a-tear NFL head coach, facing exactly the same situation faced by the Jets in the final two weeks, rolled over and died.

Makes you wonder if perhaps we've been looking for the wrong qualities in our football coaches all these years.

In his short tenure as GM, Tannenbaum has drafted gems such as Darrelle Revis, Nick Mangold and D'Brickashaw Ferguson, busts such as Vernon Gholston and works-in-progress such as Sanchez.

But deciding to make a blustery, gregarious, emotional and unpredictable defensive coordinator named Rex Ryan his coach could turn out to be his wisest pick of all.