Glauber: Fun time is over: Ryan must corral Jets

MIAMI

Even in Rex Ryan's almost-anything-goes world, the last two weeks have been exceptionally humbling for the Jets' second-year coach.

One week it was dealing with the fallout from the alleged harassment of a female reporter during practice and in the locker room. Then it was wide receiver Braylon Edwards' DWI arrest early Tuesday morning.

How did it affect the usually ebullient coach? All the information you needed was the absence of a smile during Wednesday afternoon's news conference, in which he ripped into Edwards for what he called his selfishness and acknowledged his own role in the team's embarrassing string of events.

"Quite honestly, I'm tired of dealing with some of these issues," Ryan said. "I'm tired of the embarrassment to our owner. Let's just end it. Let's stop it. Whatever it is, however severe [or] minor, we don't need to be that team. This team works too hard to be looked at in this light."

But Ryan's locker room, which is starting to resemble a frat house - in large measure because of the coach's permissive attitude - really is looked at in this light. Which is, quite frankly, not a very good one.

Ryan loves to tell his players to have fun, but by stretching the bounds of immaturity, Ryan is inviting the kind of negative publicity the team is getting.

And he's the first to admit he has played a part. Remember that incident last January at a mixed martial arts event in South Florida, where Ryan was heckled by Dolphins fans in the arena? He responded by delivering an obscene gesture, which cost him a $50,000 fine by the team and a ton of embarrassment for the organization.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea that Ryan met Saturday with former Colts coach Tony Dungy, who has been openly critical of the coach's often crass language. Dungy, who met with Ryan before the team left for today's game against the Dolphins in South Florida, wouldn't comment about the meeting when asked by reporters at the Yankees-Red Sox game, where he showed up to deliver a motivational speech to the Yankees. But it couldn't hurt for Ryan to hear from a coach whose restrained style is the antithesis of Ryan's.

Meanwhile, Ryan continues to defend his players.

"I think we have quality guys in our locker room and a good work ethic," he said. "I think we are a very disciplined team. The fact that I made a mistake in the offseason, if that filters in, then that was an embarrassing moment and that's one of the things I'm talking about to our team."

So after a summer of letting the country see the pranks and naughty language the Jets indulged in with the "Hard Knocks" series on HBO, then the Ines Sainz episode and now the Edwards ordeal, Ryan seems to understand the resulting negative fallout. Whether he will tone down the antics remains to be seen, but it's abundantly clear that the Jets need to start focusing more on football and keeping the distractions to a minimum.

That starts with Ryan, but it also has to include the team's leaders, some of whom now inherit an incalculable role played by many who are no longer with the organization. With the departures of established leaders such as Thomas Jones and Alan Faneca, there needs to be a new generation of elders to police the locker room. That might fall to newly acquired players Jason Taylor and LaDainian Tomlinson.

The fallout clearly has rattled Ryan, who was noticeably shaken by the events of the previous week involving the Sainz controversy. And now this.

"I will tell you that the Ines Sainz situation weighed heavily on Rex," said a person familiar with Ryan's situation. "It bothered him deeply. Now with Braylon, it's another thing that has affected him. Rex loves to have fun and all, but he knows these things can't keep happening."

Sounds as if Ryan needs to take his anything-goes approach and dial it back a bit. Seems as though this team could use a dose of seriousness right about now.