Rex: This week, it's personal with Belichick

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. - With Peyton Manning out of the way, Rex Ryan set his sights on his next nemesis: Bill Belichick.

And just for good measure, he took another few jabs at Tom Brady.

Ryan delivered the first few salvos of the week Monday, adding some early spice to the sixth-seeded Jets' AFC divisional game against the top-seeded Patriots at Gillette Stadium on Sunday. Similar to what he did last week when he called out Manning, Ryan made it clear he's taking his matchup with the Patriots' three-time Super Bowl-winning coach personally, especially after that 45-3 pounding New England put on the Jets last month.

"This week, this is about Bill Belichick vs. Rex Ryan," Ryan said. "There's no question. It's personal. It's about him against myself and that's what it's going to come down to."

Belichick, showing a rarely seen lighter side, had a little fun with Ryan's remarks. His response to Ryan's statement that it's personal?

"I might have a little quickness on him," Belichick cracked on a conference call with Boston-area reporters. "He probably has a little strength and power on me.

"I don't think any of us will be making any blocks or tackles. At least, you won't see me doing that."

But what people will see, according to Ryan, is a much better game plan from the Jets' perspective. Ryan thinks the Jets' scheme was too complicated in their Dec. 6 meeting and now believes it looked much better on paper than in actuality, given the way the Patriots dismantled them.

New England raced to a 17-0 lead, took a 24-3 cushion into halftime and rolled up 405 yards. The Jets were never really in it and the Patriots were the superior team from the coin toss.

"I was outcoached in that game. I said that then, I'm saying it now," Ryan said. "Belichick, I recognize the fact he is a Hall of Fame coach and he'll go down in history as maybe the greatest football coach in the history of the game or close to it, all right? And he was at that level that week and I was not. For whatever reason, I never had my team prepared the way it should have been prepared and that falls right now on me."

Ryan doesn't mind putting the pressure squarely on his broad shoulders. He explained he's taking the personal approach because he believes the teams' personnel are essentially even, pointing to his 2-2 record versus the Patriots in two seasons as the Jets' coach.

"So this is going to be about me raising my level against Bill Belichick," he said. "I recognize he's the best and all that, but I'm just trying to be the best on Sunday. And I plan on being the best coach on Sunday . . . I recognize that my level has to come up, and he's going to get my best shot.

"He's going to get everything I have on Sunday, and if he slips at all, we are going to beat him."

Just how does Ryan plan to raise his level?

"It's just going to be a ridiculous amount of preparation on our part, and also recognize that my job is to make it simpler for our players," he said. "No matter how difficult that may be as a coach, that's your job, to get your players to play the highest level possible, and that's taking away some of the gray area.

"We've got to do a great job of making it - whether it's a complex plan or not - it has to be simple because we have to play fast and physical. And that doesn't mean we are going to dummy it up against them. You'll get crushed. So we have to find that balancing act."

Ryan found a way to balance something Monday: talking about Belichick while also figuring out how to throw a few zingers at Brady.

Ryan took a poke at the two-time Super Bowl MVP when asked what he thought of Brady's attending the Broadway play "Lombardi" on Saturday night with Gisele Bündchen, his supermodel wife, rather than catching the broadcast of the Jets' victory over the Colts.

"Peyton Manning would have been watching our game," Ryan cracked with a devilish smile.

Remember last week, when Ryan said no one studies more than Manning and that maybe Brady thinks he does, but he gets more help from Belichick than Manning receives from Colts coach Jim Caldwell?

Brady, speaking on his weekly spot on WEEI radio in Boston Monday, joked, "Maybe he's right."

But he wasn't about to truly respond to Ryan's tweak.

"I don't think anything that people really say has bothered me, good, bad or indifferent over the years," he said. "Everybody has their opinion of people and things and places. All I know is that I feel really confident with our team and the way our team prepares each week. I'm sure we'll be prepared going into this game on Sunday."

Ryan initially said Monday that his intent last week wasn't to take a slap at Brady. But later he seemed to do just that again in clarifying what he meant.

"There is only one guy that belongs in that category and that's Peyton Manning," Ryan said. "That's all I was saying. I understand how it's going to be a slap . . . He took a shot at me [last month] with his antics on the field. I don't want him to score, so I'm going to do whatever I can to keep him out of the end zone."

At times, Brady points in the direction of the opposing team's bench after New England scores a touchdown, which appeared to be the "antics" Ryan was talking about.

"That's just Brady being Brady," Ryan said. "I don't like seeing that. No Jets fan likes to see that. He can't wait to do it. He's not going to say anything publicly, but he does it. It's what it is. It's my job to keep him out of the end zone."

And don't think he's not confident the Jets will get the job done Sunday.

"I'm the guy that said we'd play them again," Ryan said. "I'm the guy who believes we'll beat them. It comes down to me, nobody else."