Rex aims to bring back Jets' Super Bowl glory

FLORHAM PARK, N.J.

It was a few minutes after one of the Jets' most remarkable playoff wins ever. Rex Ryan walked to a podium Sunday at Gillette Stadium, and these were the first words out of his mouth:

"We're moving on, same old Jets going to the AFC Championship Game two years in a row," Ryan said. "Only difference is, we plan on winning this one."

Fitting that the second-year coach would use the "same old Jets" refrain that has dogged the franchise since the early 1970s. In the 42 years since Joe Namath trotted off the field at the Orange Bowl wagging his right index finger after upsetting the Colts in Super Bowl III, the Jets have been largely bereft of success.

"Same old Jets" has been the dreaded phrase uttered by fans despondent over the latest unfortunate event. The Mud Bowl. Mark Gastineau's roughing-the-passer penalty. The Fake Spike. The Kotite Years. Doug Brien's missed field goals.

Whatever calamitous event that has befallen the franchise, "same old Jets" has been the operative rant.

It's no accident that Ryan uses the phrase whenever describing his team's latest success. He delights in sarcastically twisting the words around in yet another attempt to change the culture of losing that clouded his team's past.

"I never realized the 'same old Jets' mentality, because I remember Super Bowl III and things like that, some of the successes that the Jets had when my dad was here," said Ryan, who as a 6-year-old stood on the sideline during that game not far from his father, Buddy, a defensive coach on Weeb Ewbank's staff.

"So everyone else told me about the 'same old Jets' mentality and all that."

"Same old Jets" for Ryan now has come to mean "same old winners."

"The two years I've been here, back-to-back AFC Championship Games, we'll take the 'same old Jets' mentality next year, too," he said. "We'll sign up for this exact spot. That would be fine with us, to have those opportunities."

Sunday's game presents another shot at the team's first Super Bowl appearance since the Namath days. A win over the Steelers at Heinz Field, and Ryan will get his wish.

"All I want to do is find a way to win, one point, whatever," he said. "I want that green and white confetti coming down. We want to hold the Lamar Hunt Trophy . We want that to be ours. We want the hats, we want the T-shirts. We want to experience that."

Ryan is the biggest talker the Jets have ever had as a coach - and that includes the confident, combative Bill Parcells - and he has transformed a culture of losing with a unique combination of optimism, humor and bravado. Oh, yeah, he's a heck of a coach, too, one of the best defensive tacticians in the game.

"He has turned it 180 degrees from the way it used to be, and nobody can appreciate that more than I can," said WFAN's Boomer Esiason, a former Jet. "Given the three years I spent as a franchise quarterback, it was three coaches in three years, a general manager who died in Dick Steinberg, an owner in Leon Hess who was aloof and disengaged. What I see now I'm amazed at every time I come here. It's an amazing professional organization that has taken the next step."

Tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson was intimately familiar with the "same old Jets" mantra while growing up in Freeport. He said the mind-set is completely different now.

"That old aura of the Jets, that's changed," Ferguson said. "Rex has changed that whole concept. He's been a passionate coach, an animated coach. I don't think you can say too many coaches are like that in this league. Anybody who still says [same old Jets] hasn't been following us as a team."

Behind it all is Ryan's can-do attitude, laced with a bit of stand-up comedy, wide-eyed optimism, and yes, even some bullying tactics in which he took shots at Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. And he made no secret of his Ahab-like mission to conquer Peyton Manning.

"It starts with Rex," defensive tackle Trevor Pryce said. "You can't say enough about him. When we get beat up on, like the last month, he took all the blame. And when we beat New England, he's like 'It has nothing to do with me.' . . . It has everything to do with you. It was your game plan. You did this. We're just the players.

"I've seen other head coaches take credit for wins, and when we lose, they say, 'Oh, well, the offense didn't play well,' " Pryce said. "No, you didn't coach well, and that's the truth. But Rex doesn't do that."

The players have believed since Day 1, when Ryan proclaimed that he planned on visiting President Obama very, very soon - at the White House for a Super Bowl victory celebration. He got close last year. He plans to come through this time. A win over the Steelers, followed by one Feb. 6 in Super Bowl XLV, and Ryan will have completed his mission.

It would once again be "same old Jets" - those old Jets being Super Bowl champions, just like in the days of Namath, Ewbank and Ryan's father.