Glauber: Shouldn't Rex think about toning it down a bit?

For all the lore surrounding Joe Namath's famous guarantee that his Jets would win Super Bowl III, the quarterback issued the pledge only once. And only in response to someone heckling him during an appearance at The Touchdown Club in Miami three days before the game.

After the heckler shouted that the Colts were going to beat the Jets (with some phrasing not fit for a family newspaper), Namath responded, "We're gonna win the game. I guarantee it."

And that was it. Completely unscripted. Just a gut reaction. No television cameras. Only a reporter from the Miami Herald, who had the lead story to the following day's paper.

Namath, of course, backed up the guarantee by leading the Jets to a 16-7 win in one of the biggest upsets in NFL history.

Fast-forward to this year's Jets, and we're already at nearly a guarantee-a-day pace with coach Rex Ryan, whose father, Buddy, was a defensive coach for Namath's team.

The uber-confident coach isn't shy about predicting greatness for his team, and he'll tell anyone who asks - and everyone seems to be asking these days - that he thinks his Jets will win it all in February in Dallas.

On Thursday, after an interview aboard the bus that ESPN reporter Adam Schefter is taking across the country to training camps, Ryan signed his name to the outside of the bus. Next to his name, he wrote "Soon to be champs."

The next day, when asked if the Jets will win the Super Bowl, Ryan said, "My crystal ball, I'm seeing a Super Bowl trophy in there . . . That's our mentality. That's our goal. I got confidence to put it up there . . . I believe we'll do it. So why wouldn't we say it? Why shouldn't we go for it?"

Every team should be going for it, of course. It's understood that 32 teams come into each season with the express purpose of trying to win the Super Bowl.

It's just that no coach I can remember has gone to quite these lengths in saying it so loudly and so often. And we're not even a week into training camp, for goodness sake.

Now don't get me wrong. I think Ryan's confidence and candor are a refreshing change from the usually bland comments many coaches make. His enthusiasm is contagious, and he is as open and interesting as any coach I've ever been around. His players love playing for him; heck, I love writing about him.

But I do think this Super Bowl thing can go too far, if for no other reason than the Jets are inviting the kind of reaction from opposing teams that the actual Super Bowl champions face the year after they've won the title.

Teams always go after the champions with that little extra effort to try and knock them off, and surely the Jets' opponents will want to do the same after hearing Ryan's brash talk.

I understand that Ryan wants his players to compete with a swagger regardless of the opponent. But I also understand, having covered three Super Bowl champion Giants teams, that not antagonizing the opposition is generally a positive thing. You never heard Bill Parcells or Tom Coughlin taunt other teams with Super Bowl predictions.

Ryan clearly is more comfortable with his approach, and there's no turning back now. But it doesn't mean there won't be a ripple effect. In fact, it's interesting to note that the day after Ryan signed the ESPN bus with "Soon to be champs," Patriots receiver Wes Welker was asked by Schefter for his autograph the next day. Welker wrote next to his name, "One game at a time."

P.S.: Patriots coach Bill Belichick, a winner of five Super Bowl rings, including three as a head coach, has always been careful not to provoke the competition.

It's refreshing to see a coach believe so much in his team that he's willing to put it all out there. And there's nothing wrong with saying you think you can win it all.

But it doesn't mean you have to say it every day.