But Rex, I Thought Mark Sanchez Was Elite

 

Tied at 5-3 heading into last night’s game, the New York Jets and the New England Patriots were both playing must-win football. The Jets needed to win to avenge their Week 5 loss to the Pats and get a leg up in the AFC East standings. The Pats needed to win to basically bury the Jets’ hopes, take the lead in the standings and essentially coast into the easiest 7-game stretch that any team will face for the rest of this season.

So what happened? The Pats spanked the Jets to the tune of 37-16 – and it was much worse than that score even indicates – and Rex Ryan found himself once again making excuses for empty promises and worthless guarantees. To be fair, his past guarantees have fallen short much later in the season, but this season was predicated with such boisterous claims that the man with pro sports’ most famous foot fetish now finds himself incredibly humbled.

“It looks doubtful right now,” Rex Ryan said when asked if his team still had a sliver of hope to win their division after a 37-16 loss to the Patriots. “What am I supposed to say?

“Maybe I should guarantee that we’re out of it — the last time I did that, we made the playoffs.”

(Via the New Jersey Star-Ledger)

To recap – Ryan, as he had done the two seasons before, guaranteed that his team would win the Super Bowl. And that’s fine, because he’s a brash head coach for a team that plays on the biggest stage in the game each week, so he should be confident. But he also claimed that Mark Sanchez, who also promised that the Jets would win the Super Bowl this year, was elite and just below Tom Brady and Payton Manning in terms of talent. You know, in the same company as Aaron Rodger and Drew Brees.

So of course he was a little grumpy that his elite QB pulled off “the stupidest thing in football history” by calling a timeout and leaving the Patriots time to score, and then throwing a back-breaking interception for a touchdown late in the game. Poor Rex. Somebody needs a big, old hug.

“You’re not going to beat New England — you’re not going to beat many teams — when you make as many mistakes as we made,” Ryan said. “I apologize to our fans. Our fans were ready to go, just like I thought we were.”

As someone who pulls this “Woe is me, I have been humbled and deserve not your pity” routine in fantasy football religiously, I ain’t buying the sincerity, and I’m sure as hell not letting Ryan off the hook this easily. Men who make bold, obnoxious claims despite having done nothing to deserve the arrogance portrayed deserved to be shamed and flogged in the public square.

However, if Ryan is really this upset, I offer this video of a parakeet riding a turtle to help cheer him and our Jets friends up.

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