Jacobs rips into Rex after win

The trash-talking between the Giants and the Jets went into overtime Saturday, spilling into the postgame locker rooms of both teams. The fighting may have taken place on the field, but as they left the turf, the fighting words were just beginning.

In an ESPN interview as he walked off the field -- apparently moments after a verbal confrontation with Rex Ryan -- Giants running back Brandon Jacobs called the Jets' coach a "very disrespectful ----."

"I'm glad we came out here and gave it to him," Jacobs said in the interview. "I wish I got a chance to go over there on that sideline. He is disrespectful. I understand why [Kevin] Gilbride and his Pops [Buddy Ryan] got into it a long time ago because they all talk too much."

Later, after a league-mandated cooling-off period that apparently did not work, Jacobs still was frothing about Ryan and their encounter. According to Jacobs, he was approached by Ryan while the two were leaving the field.

"I didn't say too much to him," Jacobs said. "He told me to shut the ---- up and wait until we win the Super Bowl and I said I would punch him in his face . . . I told him, 'Out of all of these Giants football players on the team, you're talking to the wrong one.' "

Ryan acknowledged that he and Jacobs had what he termed a "private conversation."

"That's all I'll leave it as," Ryan said in his postgame news conference. "Whatever. He doesn't like me. I respect him, but I could care less about him."

Other Jets came to his defense. LaDainian Tomlinson said Ryan is "not a loudmouth" but a "powerful guy that motivates his guys to play the way he wants them to play.'' Bart Scott told ESPN that Jacobs pointing at someone else talking too much is like "the pot calling the kettle black."

Jacobs admitted that he can dish the trash talk, too, and he joked that Tom Coughlin has been trying to rein him in since Jacobs' rookie year. Jacobs said he was not surprised that only hours after the Jets lost to the Eagles a week earlier, Ryan came out swinging at the Giants.

"We didn't really pay attention to it because we knew that's what we were going to get as soon as he had an opportunity to run his big fat mouth," Jacobs said. "We knew that."

It's unclear just how heated the confrontation got between Ryan and Jacobs -- although there are photographs of the two brushing shoulders and exchanging what appear to be angry words -- or even who started it. Jacobs said it wasn't him. "He came out of nowhere and started talking to me," he said. "The same way his Pops went at Gilbride and ran afterwards."

Jacobs again was referencing the infamous Buddy Ryan punch thrown at Gilbride when they were coordinators in Houston in 1993. Gilbride now is the Giants' offensive coordinator.

There were other subtle and verbal jabs between the teams. The Giants felt disrespected that the Jets used black curtains to cover up the Super Bowl logos that are painted on the wall outside their locker room; the Jets do that for all of their home games. "We all saw that as a sign of disrespect to this organization," tackle David Diehl said after removing the curtains along with Zak DeOssie and Lawrence Tynes after the game.

Tomlinson said the Jets were disrespected by the Giants' classier-than-thou, above-the-trash-talk attitude last week, even when the Giants were giving as much as they were getting. "What are we, bums over here?" he said. "We felt disrespected."

Of course the ultimate disrespect was the loss, which badly hurt the Jets' playoff chances while the Giants advanced to a winner-take-all play-in game against the Cowboys.

Jacobs was asked if he has a message for Ryan. He does. "You need to shut up," he said. "That's that. He's a great coach, comes from a great coaching family, but he needs to shut up."